Unincorporated community (Canada)

In the 13 provinces of the Canadian Republic, an unincorporated community (French communauté non-incorperée) is any community of permanent population located within an upper-tier municipality which is not part of nor forms its own incorporated lower-tier municipality. Unlike incorporated lower-tier municipalities, which each have their own municipal government which provides a plethora of local government services alongside the more regionalised services of the upper-tier municipality, unincorporated communities rely entirely upon the upper-tier municipality for all local government services (those provided below the provincial level of government).

Within Canada's five territories, the upper-tier/lower-tier dichotomy is not used, with all incorporated municipalities existing as a single tier below the territorial level. This means that within the territories, all unincorporated communities rely exclusively on the territorial and federal government for all government services, with no semblance of official local government whatever.

Nearly one million Canadians live in an unincorporated community, representing under 1% of the total national population. The province/territory with the most individual unincorporated communities is British Columbia and the province/territory with the least is the Turks and Caicos Islands.