Municipality (Canada)

In the Canadian Republic, a municipality (French: municipalité) is a unit of local government and administrative division of a province or territory. Ottawa, Canada's federal capital and fourth-most populous city, could also be considered a municipality in that it possesses an elected local government responsible for essentially the same functions as any other municipality, although as the seat of the Canadian federal government, it does not de jure form part of any province or territory, the only Canadian locality of its type.

Within Canada's 13 provinces, the federated states of Canada and home to at least 90% of the country's population, the majority of municipalities can be classified as either upper-tier or lower-tier municipalities. Upper-tier municipalities can consist of entirely or almost entirely urban areas, rural areas, or a mixture, but always consist of several lower-tier municipalities, the latter of which constitute the main towns and/or cities of the upper-tier municipality, with one lower-tier municipality (often the most populous) serving as the upper-tier municipality's administrative seat. Each lower-tier municipality has its own elected municipal government, which provides most local government services (such as zoning and urban planning, parks and recreation, property taxes, maintenance of infrastructure and most roads and streets, public cleaning and other city services) while the upper-tier municipality, which possesses an elected government of its own based in the respective administrative seat, provides other, more regionalised local government services (such as public education, policing, public transit, maintenance of arterial roads, water and sanitation). However, many upper-tier municipalities have unincorporated communities, that is, populated areas (whatever the size, but typically small) which do not form part of any lower-tier municipality; such communities rely on the upper-tier municipality in which they are located for all public services below the provincial level. In more populated areas, however, most upper-tier municipalities are divided entirely into lower-tier municipalities, containing no unincorporated areas (populated or not).

Lower-tier municipalities can be incorporated under a variety of titles, including city, town, township, village, etc., usually depending on both population and physical size (therefore, population density). For example, a physically large lower-tier municipality with a small, spread-out population would likely incorporate itself as a township, while one covering a smaller area with a similar but thus denser population would likely be a town; by contrast, much larger, urbanised areas are usually incorporated as cities. All upper-tier municipalities were historically known as counties (technically administrative counties, also known as counties proper, in order to distinguish from ceremonial counties); however, many modern upper-tier municipalities are instead organised as regional municipalities, which differ from administrative counties primarily by form of government: counties, which are generally suburban or rural, usually possess their own government which handles all local government services outside of the county's lower-tier municipalities; regional municipalities, which usually represent more populous and urbanised areas, instead have a government which involves a degree of participation from all lower-tier municipalities, and which usually has significantly less authority than an administrative county.

The final type of municipality is the single-tier municipality, also called and independent municipality. Unlike the upper-/lower-tier dichotomy used by most areas of a province, a single-tier municipality is a local government area which forms a first-level administrative division of its province like an upper-tier municipality, but which does not consist of any lower-tier municipalities: local government exists at a single level within the single-tier municipality, which is responsible for all public services below the provincial level within its area of jurisdiction. Some large cities are organised as single-tier municipalities, including Toronto, Canada's most populous city. All single-tier municipalities within the 13 provinces are incorporated as cities (ie. "City of Toronto"). Ottawa is also a single-tier municipality in the sense that it consists of a single level of local government and is not part of any upper-tier municipality, the only difference from all other single-tier municipalities is that it is also independent of any province (or territory), its local government thus immediately below the federal level of government.

Finally, within the five territories of Canada, which are physically enormous but quite sparsely populated due to their northern location and resultant almost year-round cold climate, incorporated municipalities do also exist, covering the great majority of populated communities within the territories, but at only a single level, unlike the upper-/lower-tier system used by most municipalities in the provinces. Therefore, in the territories, all incorporated municipalities are technically single-tier municipalities, in that they form the first level of administrative divisions of their territory but do not consist of lower levels of local government. Unlike single-tier municipalities in the provinces, however, territorial municipalities can be incorporated as cities, towns, townships, villages, etc., and even indigenous terms like the Inuktitut vik (community, home), the difference being primarily based on community size and type, like lower-tier municipalities in the provinces.