Unitary council (Atlantica Alba)

In the Kingdom of Atlantica Alba, a unitary council (Atlantic: couchaim aunthí) is the second-most common type of county, after a county proper. There are currently seven unitary councils in Atlantica Alba. Both counties proper and unitary councils use the council–manager form of local government, where a county council of 10 to 15 civic councillors are elected, with each councillor responsible for a particular executive department of the county, and the county council appointing a professional manager to handle the routine management and public relations of the county.

The difference between a county proper and a unitary council is that in counties proper, some non-national government services are provided by the county while most others are the responsibility of the county's municipalities, the lowest level of local government; in unitary councils, by contrast, all local government services are provided by the county, with the county divided into multiple districts, communities of a unitary council analogous to municipalities in counties proper, but without their own governments. For example, in both counties proper and unitary councils, communities (towns, cities, villages) within the county will have different names, however communities will form their own municipalities with their own local governments in counties proper, while in unitary councils communities will simply be districts of the county, which provides all local government services to the districts.

Unitary councils are similar to metropolitan counties, the least common type of county, in that they provide all local government services, lower levels being entirely holistic. However, they differ in that metropolitan counties typically consist of a single contiguous urban area divided into boroughs instead of districts, and using the mayor–council form of government (the same used by municipalities in counties proper) for the "city government" which is coterminous with the metropolitan county.