Merger (politics)

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A merger, consolidation or amalgamation, in a political or administrative sense, is the combination of two or more political or administrative entities, such as municipalities (in other words cities, towns, etc.), counties, districts, etc., into a single entity. This term is used when the process occurs within a sovereign entity.

Unbalanced growth or outward expansion of one neighbor may necessitate an administrative decision to merge (see urban sprawl). In some cases, common perception of continuity may be a factor in prompting such a process (see conurbation). Some cities (see below) that have gone through amalgamation or a similar process had several administrative sub-divisions or jurisdictions, each with a separate person in charge.

Annexation is similar to amalgamation, but differs in being applied mainly to two cases:

1. The units joined are sovereign entities before the process, as opposed to being units of a single political entity.
2. A city's boundaries are expanded by adding territories not already incorporated as cities or villages.

Notable municipal mergers

The act of merging two or more municipalities into a single new municipality may be done for a variety of reasons, including urban growth, reducing the cost of local government and improving the efficiency of municipal service delivery.

Belgium

In 1977, the 2,359 municipalities of Belgium were merged to 596 new municipalities.

Brazil

In 1975, the

within the new state. In geographical terms, it would seem the state of Rio would have incorporated Guanabara; but, as the administrative and financial resources of the former capital were significant and even larger than the rest of the state, the change was more correctly referred to as a merger (fusão).

Canada

In Canada, the 1990s saw the forced amalgamation of several municipal entities in the provinces of Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec into larger new municipalities. Even in cases where a central city merged with its suburbs, the amalgamated city was legally a new municipality, even if it was given the central city's name and was in effect a defacto annexation by the central city. The process created what was labeled a megacity by the media, although none of the created municipalities fit in the definition of a megacity in the international sense and some of them have fewer than a million inhabitants.

New Brunswick

• Municipal amalgamations in New Brunswick

Nova Scotia

• Municipal amalgamations in Nova Scotia

Ontario

In the early 1970s, the various towns, villages, and townships surrounding Metropolitan Toronto that were undergoing suburbanization were amalgamated into various new municipalities; among them Mississauga and Vaughan. Later, the provincial government of Mike Harris undertook an extensive province-wide program of municipal mergers between 1996 and 2002. The province had 815 municipalities in 1996; by 2002, this had been reduced to just 447.^[1] The list of municipalities in Ontario is updated regularly.

• Toronto – In 1967, the towns of Leaside, Mimico, New Toronto and Weston and the villages of Forest Hill, Long Branch and Swansea amalgamated into the city and various boroughs comprising Metropolitan Toronto. In 1998, the former boroughs within Metropolitan Toronto were merged into a new City of Toronto.
• Cambridge – In 1973, the provincial government created the new City of Cambridge by amalgamating the City of Galt, the towns of Preston and Hespeler.
• Thunder Bay – On January 1, 1970, the twin cities of Fort William, and Port Arthur, merged into one city.
• Rockcliffe Park
  amalgamated into a new City of Ottawa.
• Greater Sudbury – resulted from the merger of the former Regional Municipality of Sudbury in 2001; the regional municipality itself was created by a series of municipal amalgamations in 1973.
• Glanbrook
  merged to create the new City of Hamilton.
• Temiskaming Shores – In 2004, the towns of New Liskeard and Haileybury, along with the township of Dymond, merged to create the new town of Temiskaming Shores.

Quebec

• Masson-Angers
  ) were merged into a new city of Gatineau in 2002.
• Longueuil
• Montreal Merger on January 1, 2002, the Parti Québécois provincial government merged all municipalities on the Island of Montreal
  into a new City of Montreal. On January 1, 2006, a partial demerger occurred.
• Quebec City
• Rouyn-Noranda
• La Baie and Laterrière
  , along with the municipalities of Lac-Kénogami and Shipshaw and part of the township of Tremblay, were amalgamated into the City of Saguenay in 2002.
• Sherbrooke
• Trois-Rivières
• Val-d'Or

Manitoba

• City of Winnipeg Act
  . The word unicity is used more commonly than megacity to describe that particular amalgamation.

China

The two previously independent cities

Denmark

In 1970, mergers brought the number of municipalities of Denmark from 1,098 to 277. In 2007, the (by then) 270 municipalities were consolidated into 98 municipalities, most of them the result of mergers.

Finland

An ongoing series of mergers has reduced the number of municipalities of Finland from 432 in 2006 to 311 in 2017.

Germany

Several states of West Germany carried out municipal merger programmes in the 1960s and 1970s. In Baden-Württemberg, the number of municipalities dropped from 3,379 to 1,110 between 1968 and 1975; in Bavaria, from roughly 7,000 to roughly 2,000 between 1972 and 1978; in Hesse, from 2,642 to 421 between 1972 and 1977; in North Rhine-Westphalia, from 2,365 to 396 between 1967 and 1975; and in Saarland, from 345 to 50 in 1974. In the Bavarian town of Ermershausen, citizens occupied the town hall to resist the merger with Maroldsweisach – unsuccessfully, although Ermershausen was reconstituted as an independent municipality in 1994 – and Horgau, also in Bavaria, successfully appealed its merger with Zusmarshausen to the Constitutional Court of Bavaria (Bayerischer Verfassungsgerichtshof). Mergers have also taken place in the former East Germany after 1990, for example in Brandenburg in 2003.

Greece

The

with 325 new municipalities in 2011.

Hungary

Budapest, the capital and largest city in Hungary, was formed from the merger of the cities of Buda and Pest across the river Danube in 1873.

Israel

In 2003 the cities of Baqa al-Gharbiyye and Jatt joined to form the city of Baqa-Jatt, but the merger was dissolved in 2010.

Japan

Malaysia

On 21 April 2018, The Negeri Sembilan state government declared of

New Zealand

In November 2010, the Seven Councils of Auckland City: Auckland City Council, Manukau City Council, Waitakere City Council, North Shore City Council, Papakura District Council, Rodney District Council and most of Franklin District Council has seen amalgamated to form Auckland City Council.

Philippines

In the Philippines,

Portugal

Braga district

).

In 2013, more than 1,000 parishes/freguesias were merged.

Sweden

Many rural municipalities of Sweden were merged in 1952; the number of them decreasing from 2,281 to 816. Another series of mergers, this time also including cities and market towns, reduced the total number of municipalities from roughly 1,000 in the early 1960s to 278 in 1974. As of 2013, Sweden has 290 municipalities.

United States

In United States politics, such a merged entity may be called a

.

• Queens, and Staten Island
  ) of New York.
• Unigov – The local government amalgamation of Indianapolis, Indiana.
• In New Jersey, Princeton Borough and Princeton Township became one municipality (Princeton, New Jersey), in January 2013, after voters passed a referendum in early November 2011, supported by residents of both municipalities.^[6]

See also

• Municipal annexation
• Urban agglomeration
• Combined statistical area
• Conurbation
• Ecumenopolis
• Ekistics
• List of double placenames
• consolidated city–county
• City-state
• Megalopolis
• Megacity
• Metropolitan area
• Metropolis

References