Borough
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A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term borough designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely.
History
In the
The concept of the borough has been used repeatedly (and often differently) throughout the world. Often, a borough is a single town with its own local government. However, in some cities it is a subdivision of the city (for example,
Boroughs as administrative units are to be found in Ireland and the United Kingdom, more specifically in England and Northern Ireland. Boroughs also exist in the Canadian province of Quebec and formerly in Ontario, in some states of the United States, in Israel, formerly in New Zealand and only one left in Australia.
Etymology
The word borough derives from the
borg in Scandinavian languages, Burg in German.A number of other European languages have cognate words that were borrowed from the Germanic languages during the Middle Ages, including brog in Irish, bwr or bwrc, meaning "wall, rampart" in Welsh, bourg in French, burg in Catalan (in Catalonia there is a town named Burg), borgo in Italian, burgo in Portuguese, Galician and Castilian (hence the castilian place-name Burgos, galician place-names O Burgo and Malburgo), the -bork of Lębork and Malbork in Polish and the -bor of Maribor in Slovenian.
The 'burg' element, which means "castle" or "fortress", is often confused with 'berg' meaning "hill" or "mountain" (c.f. iceberg, inselberg). Hence the 'berg' element in Bergen or Heidelberg relates to a hill, rather than a fort. In some cases, the 'berg' element in place names has converged towards burg/borough; for instance Farnborough, from fernaberga (fern-hill).
Definitions
Australia
In
Canada
In Quebec, the term borough is generally used as the English translation of arrondissement, referring to an administrative division of a municipality, or a district. Eight municipalities are divided into boroughs: See List of boroughs in Quebec.
In
Colombia
The Colombian Municipalities are subdivided into boroughs (English translation of the Spanish term localidades) with a local executive and an administrative board for local government. These boroughs are divided in neighborhoods.
Also, the principal cities had localidades with the same features as the European or American cities, including
.Ireland
There are four borough districts designated by the
Historically, there were 117 parliamentary boroughs in the Irish House of Commons, of which 80 were disfranchised by the Acts of Union 1800. All but 11 municipal boroughs were abolished under the Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840. Under the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898, six of these became county boroughs: Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Derry, Limerick and Waterford. From 1921, Belfast and Derry were part of Northern Ireland and stayed within the United Kingdom on the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922.
Galway was a borough from 1937 until upgraded to a county borough in 1985.[4][5] The county boroughs in the Republic of Ireland were redesignated as "cities" under the Local Government Act 2001.
Dún Laoghaire was a borough from 1930 until merged into Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown county in 1994.[6][7]
There were five borough councils in place at the time of the Local Government Reform Act 2014 which abolished all second-tier local government units of borough and town councils. Each local government authority outside of Dublin, Cork City and Galway City was divided into areas termed
Israel
Under Israeli law, inherited from
It is the declared intention of the Interior Ministry to use the borough mechanism in order to facilitate municipal mergers in Israel, after a 2003 wide-reaching merger plan, which, in general, ignored the sensitivities of the communal settlements, and largely failed.
Mexico
In Mexico as translations from English to Spanish applied to Mexico City, the word borough has resulted in a delegación (delegation), referring to the 16 administrative areas within the Mexico City, now called Alcaldías.
Netherlands
In the
New Zealand
In the 1980s, some boroughs and cities began to be merged with their surrounding counties to form
Trinidad and Tobago
In
United Kingdom
England and Wales
Ancient and municipal boroughs
During the medieval period many towns were granted self-governance by the Crown, at which point they became referred to as boroughs. The formal status of borough came to be conferred by
Debates on the Reform Bill (eventually the
As part of a large-scale reform of local government in England and Wales
Parliamentary boroughs
After the 1832 Reform Act, which disenfranchised many of the
County boroughs
The Local Government Act 1888 established a new sort of borough – the county borough. These were designed to be 'counties-to-themselves'; administrative divisions to sit alongside the new administrative counties. They allowed urban areas to be administered separately from the more rural areas. They, therefore, often contained pre-existing municipal boroughs, which thereafter became part of the second tier of local government, below the administrative counties and county boroughs.
The county boroughs were, like the municipal boroughs, abolished in 1974, being reabsorbed into their parent counties for administrative purposes.
Metropolitan boroughs
In 1899, as part of a reform of local government in the County of London, the various parishes in London were reorganised as new entities, the 'metropolitan boroughs'. These were reorganised further when Greater London was formed out of Middlesex, parts of Surrey, Kent, Essex, Hertfordshire and the County of London in 1965. These council areas are now referred to as "London boroughs" rather than "metropolitan boroughs".
When the new metropolitan counties (Greater Manchester, Merseyside, South Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear, West Midlands, and West Yorkshire) were created in 1974, their sub-divisions also became metropolitan boroughs in many, but not all, cases; in many cases these metropolitan boroughs recapitulated abolished county boroughs (for example, Stockport). The metropolitan boroughs possessed slightly more autonomy from the metropolitan county councils than the shire county districts did from their county councils.
With the abolition of the metropolitan county councils in 1986, these metropolitan boroughs became independent, and continue to be so at present.
Other current uses
Elsewhere in England a number of
Northern Ireland
In
Scotland
United States
In the United States, a borough is a unit of local government or other administrative division below the level of the state. The term is currently used in seven states.
The following states use, or have used, the word with the following meanings:
- county-equivalent — List of boroughs and census areas in Alaska
- Connecticut, as an incorporated municipality within, or consolidated with, a town — see Borough (Connecticut)
- Michigan, formerly applied to a village in the midst of forming a city.[10] Also in Michigan is Mackinac Island, which was a borough from 1817 to 1847, when it became a village; it has been a city since 1899.
- New Jersey, as a type of independent incorporated municipality — see Borough (New Jersey)
- New York, as one of the five divisions of New York City, each coextensive with a county — see Boroughs of New York City
- Pennsylvania, as a type of municipality comparable to a town — see Borough (Pennsylvania) — though two of the state's largest cities, Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, have retained their names despite clearly being cities, as well as smaller communities that are officially cities in the Commonwealth such as Gettysburg
- Virginia, as a division of a city under certain circumstances — see Administrative divisions of Virginia § Boroughs
- Wisconsin in the 19th century occasionally used the term "borough" for the type of civil township normally known as a town.[11]
See also
- History of local government in England
- Borough status in the United Kingdom
- Boroughs incorporated in England and Wales 1835–1882 and 1882–1974
- Burgh and List of burghs in Scotland
- County borough
- Ancient borough
- Metropolitan borough
- Municipal borough
- Boroughs of New York City
- Borough-English, a form of inheritance associated with the English boroughs
References
Citations
- ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition (2000)
- ISBN 978-1-4064-2990-9. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-10-09. Retrieved 29 January 2019.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link - ^ "Other Questions: Local Electoral Area Boundary Committee Report". Dáil debates. KildareStreet.com. 15 January 2019.
- ^ "Local Government (Galway) Act 1937". Irish Statute Book. Archived from the original on 11 August 2014. Retrieved 5 August 2014.
- ^ "Local Government (Reorganisation) Act 1985". Irish Statute Book. Retrieved 5 August 2014.
- ^ "Local Government (Dublin) Act 1930". Irish Statute Book. Archived from the original on 23 July 2015. Retrieved 5 August 2014.
- ^ "Local Government (Dublin) Act, 1993". Irish Statute Book. Archived from the original on 11 August 2014. Retrieved 5 August 2014.
- ^ "Local Government Reform Act 2014, Section 19 (insertion of section 22A into the Local Government Act 2001)". Irish Statute Book. Retrieved 2 August 2014.
- ^ 1881 census summary Archived 2009-01-15 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Lien, Cathryn (July 14, 2017). "City of Mackinac Island Reaches 200th Anniversary". Mackinac Island Town Crier. Archived from the original on February 8, 2018. Retrieved February 7, 2018.
- ^ Deborah B. Martin (1913). History of Brown County Wisconsin : Past and Present, Vol. 1 (PDF). Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company. p. 302. Retrieved 25 April 2023.
Sources
- Smith, William Charles (1878), , in Baynes, T. S. (ed.), Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 4 (9th ed.), New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, pp. 62–64
- Bateson, Mary (1911), Chisholm, Hugh (ed.), Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 4 (11th ed.), Cambridge University Press, pp. 268–273 , in
External links
- The dictionary definition of borough at Wiktionary