United States municipalities
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| State, Territory or Commonwealth | Description | admin_level=8 | WP Category/List | WP ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Colorado | Colorado has two basic divisions for incorporated municipalities, towns and cities, though Colorado law makes relatively few distinctions between the two. "In general, cities are more populous than towns, although the towns of Castle Rock and Parker have more than 45,000 residents each, while the city of Black Hawk has fewer than 120 residents." Village and civil townships are not civil divisions in the state of Colorado, although the cities or towns may have 'Village' in the name. In Colorado, Denver and Broomfield are simultaneously a city, which is a municipal corporation, and a county, which is an administrative division of a state. Denver and Broomfield are each known as a "consolidated city-county" and so should be tagged boundary=administrative in OSM twice, on identical (multi)polygons: one as county equivalent (admin_level=6), a second for the city component as admin_level=8. | town, city | [1] | [2] |
| Florida | "Municipalities in Florida may be called towns, cities, or villages, but there is no legal distinction between the different terms." "All municipalities are located within a county and the county jurisdiction overlays the municipal jurisdiction." There is unincorporated territory in Florida. Disney's Reedy Creek Improvement District, a drainage district with city-like powers, is admin_level=7 (and contains two admin_level=8 cities). As of February 27, 2023, Reedy Creek Improvement District is renamed "Central Florida Tourism Oversight District." | town, city, village | [3] | [4] |
| Maryland | Maryland has 23 counties and one independent city (Baltimore) each of which should be admin_level=6. Maryland's counties oversee many of the administrative duties that other states leave to sub-county governments, so there are no authority-wielding minor civil divisions, and relatively few incorporated cities and towns. The US Census Bureau uses Maryland's election districts in the same statistical role as other states' minor civil divisions, so it might seem that election districts could be tagged admin_level=7. Strictly speaking, statistical boundaries are not boundary=administratives, so these election districts shouldn't be tagged with boundary=administrative or an admin_level=* of any value.
Since most population centers are unincorporated, the majority of admin_level=8 regions in Maryland are Census Designated Places (CDPs). However, since a discussion on talk-us in 2012,[1] tagging CDPs with admin_level=8 has fallen out of favor, except when there is very good reason to do so (as in Alaska). Today, boundary=census remains a useful tag only in some limited circumstances, ideally without an admin_level=* tag. |
city, town, village, CDP(?) | link | link |
| Pennsylvania | "After the county level, everyone in Pennsylvania lives under the jurisdiction of at least two types of municipal governments [municipalities, and school districts]." "The Constitution of Pennsylvania mentions only three types of non-school related municipal divisions; city, borough, and township. Bloomsburg however, is the only incorporated town in Pennsylvania but is administered by the borough code and is classified (for legal purposes) as such by the state." "School districts can comprise of one single municipality, like the School District of Philadelphia or can comprise of multiple municipalities." However, school districts can exist in multiple counties, and multiple counties can exist in a school district. [5] It can be so concluded that it is inappropriate to tag school districts with any particular admin_level=*. A better tag for school districts is boundary=school but this tag is quite rare in OSM. | city, borough, township, the town of Bloomsburg | [6] | [7] |
| New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont Emerging (2024-Q1) |
These three New England states see tagging emerging to tag unincorporated areas (townships, gores, purchases...) with admin_level=8. This table row entry is made to avoid confusion with these "as if they were" municipalities, as they are not really those, but could be confused with them because admin_level=8 tagging is common or frequent with US municipalities (in states, not territories, where "municipalities" are always admin_level=6). | unincorporated_place (for many different enties like townships, gores, purchases...) | ||
| New Jersey | "Each type of municipality has equal legal standing, rights, and powers as any other type or form." Types are borough, city, town, township, and village. "There is no unincorporated territory." | borough, city, town, township, village | [8] | [9] |
| New York | New York City is located in five different counties. "The city today consists of the entire area of five counties (named New York, Kings, Queens, Bronx, and Richmond). While these counties exercise no direct county government, boroughs — with boundaries coterminus with the county boundaries, effectively county equivalents — each have a Borough Board made up of the Borough President, the borough's district council members, and the chairpersons of the borough's community boards," exercising relatively little effective government administration, but "not zero," either. "In New York, a town is the major division of each county (excluding the five counties that comprise New York City)." "Whereas cities and villages can cross county boundaries, all towns in New York are within a single county." "Villages are a third layer of government, which are usually overlaid inside a town, and co-administer with the town, county, and state." "The village of Pomona (red) in Rockland County is partly within two different towns." | city, hamlet (subordinate to county); village, city of Sherrill (subordinate to town, town is subordinate to county) | [10] [11] | [12] |
| American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, United States Virgin Islands and United States Minor Outlying Islands | In Territories and Commonwealths, "Municipality" has a distinct meaning as county equivalent (admin_level=6), not the sense of a city or town (or similar, admin_level=8) in the 50 states. This is true even as in American Samoa, the admin_level=* immediately below Municipality (admin_level=6) is, in fact, called a "County" (admin_level=7). | American Samoa: village; CNMI, Guam: none; Puerto Rico: ciudad (city) or pueblo (town); United States Virgin Islands: subdistrict |
See also
Additional reading
- Government Organization by the US Census Bureau