Municipalities of the Arab Union

Municipalities (Arabic: بلديات baladiyāt; sg. بلدية baladiyah), also known as council areas (مجالات المجلس majālāt al-majlis; sg. مجال المجلس majāl al-majlis) in reference to local government (called a municipal council), form the lowest administrative tier in the governmental hierarchy of the Arab Union, followed by the 20 governments unique to each of the 20 republics, and finally the federal government. In addition to their passive role as administrative divisions of their respective republic, municipalities are governed by a mayor and/or municipal council elected by the municipality's adult population; municipal governments are responsible for providing virtually all local services within their district, such as water and sanitation, road and other urban/suburban infrastructure, as well as collecting business taxes, creating and enforcing bylaws collecting property taxes, and overseeing rental and other housing markets.

Municipal governments can be one of two forms: mayor–council governments, the more common form, consist of a popularly elected mayor (عمدة '‘amdah) who appoints fellow party members or other political peers to his cabinet, which is known as the Executive Council (المجلس التنفيذي al-majlis at-tanfīdhī), while a separately elected Municipal Council (مجلس البلد majlis al-balad) acts as the legislative branch of the municipal government, passing bylaws and such, Council–manager governments, which account for the remaining 35% of municipal governments, take a different approach: a single municipal election elects the members of the Municipal Council, which in addition to legislative responsibilities, chooses from amongst themselves a chairperson who subsequently appoints a Municipal Manager (مدير البلد mudīr al-balad'') to handle routine executive decisions, appointing a cabinet of his own on advice of the Municipal Council. Mayoral and/or municipal council elections take place every five years.

All urban and semi-urban communities within the 20 republics of the Arab Union are part of one or more municipalities; these municipalities are officially named either "cities" (مدن mudun; sg. مدينة madīnah) or "towns" (قرى qurā; sg. قرية qiryah), depending on whether or not the municipality's resident population exceeds 10,000. Municipalities which cover rural areas consisting of farmland and/or natural landscape interspersed with small unincorporated communities are called "townships" (بلدات baldāt; sg. بلدة baldah); such small communities within a township are called "hamlets" (نجوع nujū‘; sg. نجع naj‘), which typically make up the bulk of a township's population. The 20 republics are divided entirely into multiple municipalities, meaning one cannot go anywhere in the 20 republics without being simultaneously in a particular municipality; many small communities are not incorporated as municipalities and are thus known as unincorporated communities, however, all are hamlets of a particular township-designated municipality.

Nasser City, the federal capital of the Arab Union, is a special case: while functioning internally as a municipality with. mayor–council government, its municipal government also has departments responsible for essentially all services otherwise provided by republican governments; this is because, as the federal capital, Nasser City's territory falls outside the jurisdiction of any of the 20 republics, meaning that the only level of government above the Nasser City government is the federal government, thus requiring the municipal government to provide for its citizens both municipal- and republican-type government services (all except those for which the federal government is responsible). For example, each of the 20 republics has a civilian police force unique to it, which polices all municipalities in the republic and the republic as a whole, and answers to the republic's Ministry of Interior; Nasser City, by contrast, maintains its own civilian police which is responsible for all non-federal law enforcement activities in the capital, the only law enforcement agency in the Arab Union unique to a single municipality.