Local government in the Arab Union

The Union of Arab Republics (UAR), informally known as the Arab Union, is a federal republic in North Africa and Western Asia. Administered as a union of 20 republics, which share sovereignty with the federation, as well as one internal and 22 external territories, the Arab Union's local governments employ a uniform structure, which, despite the local government level being subordinate to the republican or territorial level, is prescribed in detail in the Constitution of the Arab Union, which also acts as the constitution of each republic.

The federal government forms the first tier of government in the Arab Union, and is responsible for foreign relations, national security and defence, and other international matters, as well as domestic matters affecting two or more republics and/or territories. The republican and territorial governments form the second tier; republics and territories act as first-level administrative divisions of the federation. The third and final tier consists of local government, with any one local government's area of jurisdiction officially called a "municipality" (بلدية baladiyah; plur. بلديات baladiyāt). Virtually all municipalities adopt a formal version of their name prefixed by a term indicating the municipality type, the most common of which include "city" (مدينة madīnah), "town" (قرية qiryah) and "urban district" (منطقة حضرية minṭaqah ḥaḍrīyah) for urban and/or suburban municipalities, and "district" (منطقة minṭaqah), "county" (مقاطعة muqāṭa‘ah) and "township" (بلدة baldah) for less densely populated suburban and rural municipalities. Some (mostly urban) municipalities opt instead to simply use the generic term "municipality"; for example, Iraq's third-most populous municipality and primary port city of Basra is formally known as Basra Municipality (بلدية البصرة baladiyat al-baṣrah).

Unlike local government in most other states, local government in the Arab Union exists at a single tier: all municipalities, regardless of their formal name, population, population density and geographical size, form a single level of government directly subordinate to the respective republic or territory, with no local government subordinate to another and all municipalities considered equal subjects of the republican/territorial government. The overwhelming majority of communities which make up the Arab Union's republics and territories (including all agricultural regions, most of the smallest villages and hamlets, and even many large, virtually uninhabited areas) form part of one or more municipalities. However, approximately 559,000 people, or just over 0.01% (1 in 10,000) of the Arab Union's population, live in extremely remote communities not located in any incorporated municipality; such communities, which are officially referred to by the All-Union Central Bureau of Statistics as unincorporated communities, must by default rely on their republican or territorial government for public services not provided by the federal government, but in practice typically contract with neighbouring municipalities for the provision of most public services.

Most military bases and training grounds of the Union Defence Forces are located outside of any particular municipality, and are instead incorporated under the provisions of the National Defence Act as a defence district (not to be confused with the military districts); defence districts, while incorporated under federal law, still form administrative divisions of the republics/territories, and as such answer directly to their republican/territorial government concerning all civil matters.

Municipal governments can be one of two types: a mayor–council government, the more common type, consists of a popularly elected mayor who appoints from amongst his party/coalition or peer group a cabinet, formally called the "Municipal Council" (مجلس البلدية majlis al-baladiyah), which oversees all executive and administrative responsibilities of the municipality; the less common type is the council–manager government, which consists of a popularly elected Municipal Council responsible for formulating municipal policy and supervising the municipality's executive agencies, as well as appointing from amongst its membership a manager to handle daily executive decisions, similar to a mayor but answerable to the Municipal Council rather than vice versa. In both types, municipal governments can be dissolved and new municipal elections called by a two-thirds' majority in a public referendum. Public referenda may also be used to change the form of municipal government from one type to the other. As of 2020, the ratio of mayor–council governments to council–manager governments was roughly 10:3, making the mayor–council form just over three times as common as the council–manager form.