Borough

A borough is an used in various countries. In principle, the term borough designates a self-governing although, in practice, official use of the term varies widely.

In the, boroughs were settlements that were granted some. Boroughs were particularly common in, , and. In, boroughs were also entitled to elect members of. in, is thought to have been the original 'borough' from which all others derive.

Usually, a borough is a single town with its own local government. However, in some cities it is a subdivision of the city (e.g., , and ). In such cases, the borough will normally have either limited powers delegated to it by the city's local government, or no powers at all. At certain times, London has had no overall city government and London boroughs were the main unit of local government for Londoners. In other places, such as, a borough does not designate a single township, but a whole. In, 'borough' can designate a town and its surrounding area, e.g..

Boroughs are to be found in the, more specifically in , and. Boroughs also exist in the  of  and, in some  of the , in , and formerly in.

Several places in owe part of their name to borough, but with a variety of spellings; e.g.:
 * (brough, especially in the )
 * (borough)
 * (burgh, especially in - see )
 * (bury, especially in the )

A few places, e.g. and, are named exclusively for their being a borough.

These forms of the word borough were carried to North America. The Scottish forms are found in the and. The suffix -bury is found in. The ending -boro is also common in the, especially in. Borough is a rare surname, most common in the UK and USA; but derivatives of the word, such as Brough, are a little more common. The related German word Burg (castle) is common in German place names and is also found in North American place names.

Nominally self-governing boroughs existed in medieval France and Spain, called bourg in French and burgo in Spanish. Both these terms are found in some place names.

Pronunciation
In many parts of England, "borough" is pronounced as   as an independent word, and as  when a suffix of a place-name. As a suffix, it is sometimes spelled "-brough".

In the United States, "borough" is pronounced as. When appearing as the suffix "-burg(h)" in place-names, it's pronounced.

Canada
In, the term borough refers to an administrative division of a municipality. It was previously used in, , to denote suburban municipalities.

Only eight municipalities in Quebec are divided into boroughs. See.

United Kingdom
In the, the name "borough" is applied to various types of local government districts.

In, there are three types of boroughs: , metropolitan boroughs, and non-metropolitan boroughs. The term is used to describe a type of district with borough status that have been in existence in. Reorganized in 1965, Greater London currently has thirty-two of these type of borough, including the. Districts with borough status within the six are known as s.  Districts granted a charter outside Greater London and the six metropolitan counties are non-metropolitan districts are simply known as boroughs.

Elsewhere in England a number of and  councils are called "borough". Historically, this was a status that denoted towns with a certain type of local government (a ). Since 1974, it has been a purely ceremonial style granted by royal charter, which entitles the council chairman to bear the title of. Districts may apply to the for the grant of borough status upon advice of the.

In, local government was reorganised in 1973. Under the legislation that created the twenty-six, a district council whose area included an existing could resolve to adopt the charter of the old municipality and thus continue to enjoy borough status. Districts that do not contain a former borough can apply for a charter in a similar manner to districts.

Several unitary authorities in are called s. Apart from the title of the authority and its civic head, there is no difference in powers between these and the other Welsh unitary s.

A number of boroughs have additionally been granted the higher.

For usage of a cognate term, see.

United States
The word "borough" has many meanings relating to. Since the makes local government for the most part a matter for the  rather than the federal government, the states are free to have political subdivisions called "boroughs", or not to do so, and to define the word in many different ways.

The following states use, or have used, the word with the following meanings:
 * , as a
 * , as an incorporated municipality within, or consolidated with, a
 * , formerly applied to one municipality
 * , as a type of independent incorporated municipality - see
 * , as one of the five divisions of, each coextensive with a county - See
 * , as a type of municipality
 * , as a division of a city under certain circumstances

Australia
In, the term borough is an occasionally used term for a local government area. There is only one borough in Australia; The in.

Israel
Under Israeli law, inherited from municipal law, the possibility of creating a municipal borough exists. However, no borough was actually created under law until 2005-2006, when and, both communal settlements (Heb: yishuv kehilati) founded in 1953 and 1984, respectively, were declared to be autonomous municipal boroughs (Heb: vaad rova ironi), within their mergers with the towns of  and. Similar structures have been created under different types of legal status over the years in Israel, notably in,  in  and  and  in. However, Neve Monosson is the first example of a full municipal borough actually declared under law by the Minister of the Interior, under a model subsequently adopted in as well.

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 generally ignored the sensitivities of the communal settlements, largely failed.

Republic of Ireland
Under the section 10 (3) and schedule 6 part 1 chapter 1, the following continue to be known as Boroughs (though this is largely a matter of nomenclature), , , ,. In Section 10 (7) continues the "use of the description city in relation to Kilkenny, to the extent that that description was used before and is not otherwise inconsistent with this Act."

Historical boroughs
In its original Anglo-Saxon connection with its modern meaning, a borough was a number of households or an extended household, surrounded by a defensive wall. This might have been a stockade or a walled town. In place-names therefore, it can refer to the walled enclosure of a lord's hall or to a walled town. When the of the  were given that name, this was people's view of them. By the late medieval period, a charter from the king and a civic organization became more significant in defining a borough than the wall was.

Municipal boroughs
In England and Wales, boroughs developed as a method of providing a corporate identity for a town, particularly in relation to rights obtained from local barons or from the English Crown. The formal status of borough came to be conferred by.

These boroughs were generally governed by a self-selecting corporation (i.e., when a member died or resigned his replacement would be by ). Sometimes boroughs were governed by or headboroughs.

Debates on the Reform Bill (eventually the Reform Act 1832) had highlighted the variations in systems of governance of towns, and a was set up to investigate the issue. This resulted in a regularisation of municipal government, with all municipal corporations to be elected according to a standard franchise based on property ownership. At the same time, a procedure was established whereby a town could Parliament to be given borough status. The 178 reformed boroughs, and those that followed them, became known as. A number of remained after 1835, these being finally abolished in 1886.

The reform of county government established the , a city or town that had a corporation as any other borough, but with additional powers equivalent to those of a.

As part of a large-scale reform of local government in England and Wales, both county boroughs and municipal boroughs were abolished. However, the civic traditions of many boroughs were continued by the grant of a to their successor district councils. In smaller boroughs, a was formed for the area of the abolished borough, while  were formed in other former boroughs. In each case, the new body was allowed to use the regalia of the old corporation, and appoint ceremonial office holders such as sword and mace bearers as provided in their original charters. The council or trustees may apply for an or  to use the former borough.

Parliamentary boroughs
From 1265, two burgesses from each borough were summoned to the, alongside two from each. Representation in the was decided by the House itself, which resulted in many cases of a borough being represented in Parliament despite it having no corporation or mayor (or vice versa).

By the 19th century, the population changes brought about by the had created a situation in which a major conurbation might have no representation in Parliament, whilst towns which had declined in size to mere villages still retained their seat. Additionally, the electoral franchise varied from borough to borough, some of which had become s.

The sought to rationalise this system to some extent, as well as eliminating corrupt practices. Many boroughs, some of which existed in little more than name, were disenfranchised, whilst some of the industrial towns which had developed in the came to be represented in Parliament for the first time.

Subsequent Reform Acts gave more parliamentary seats to the expanding boroughs, whilst disenfranchising the smaller ones. From 1884, voters in county and borough seats had the same franchise, so the distinction between the two was essentially eliminated; however, on the assumption that the smaller, urban boroughs would require less travelling for electoral candidates than in the larger, more rural county seats, the distinction between the two sorts of constituency was retained for the purposes of calculating maximum permitted electoral expenses.

Metropolitan boroughs
In 1899, as part of a reform of local government in the County of, the various parishes in the county were reorganised as a new entity, the metropolitan borough. These became reorganised as in a subsequent reform, in 1965.

As part of the 1974 reform of local government in England, six major urban areas were established as "metropolitan counties", divided into "metropolitan districts". A number of those districts over time were granted the dignity of "borough", and thus became known as a metropolitan borough.

Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland
For the similar situation in Ireland cf.

New Zealand
formerly used the term borough to designate self-governing towns of more than 1,000 people. A borough of more than 20,000 people could become a city by proclamation. Boroughs and cities were collectively known as municipalities, and were s separate from their surrounding counties.

In the 1980s, some boroughs and cities began to be merged with their surrounding counties to form s with a mixed urban and rural population. In 1989, a nationwide reform of local government completed the process. Counties and boroughs were abolished and all boundaries were redrawn. Under the new system, most territorial authorities cover both urban and rural land. The more populated councils are classified as cities, and the more rural councils are classified as districts. Only District, an enclave within  District, continues to follow the tradition of a small town council that does not include surrounding rural area.

Borough as a place name
There is a neighbourhood in the simply called, south of London Bridge across the Thames from the. There are several villages in England, such as those in and the, called Brough, pronounced.

in Spain is across the river Ucero from the smaller City of Osma; also in Spain lies the city of. See also below under the places mentioned in the next section on Etymology.

Etymology
The word borough has in other. For example, burgh in, Burg in and borg in both  and ; the equivalent word is also to be found in , , , and. Alternate forms and spellings in English include bury and burrow.

The borough and the   are derived from the  word burh (with other dialectal variants including burg, beorh, beorg, and byrig). The word originally indicated a fortified town, and was related to the verb beorgan (cf. Dutch and German bergen), meaning "to keep, to save, to make secure".

A number of other European languages have cognate words which were borrowed from the Germanic languages during the, including brog in , bwr or bwrc, meaning "wall, rampart" in , bourg in , burg in , borgo in , and burgo in (hence the place-name ).

Also related are the words bourgeois and belfry (both from the French), and burglar; more distantly, it is related to words meaning "hill" or "mountain" in a number of languages (cf. the second element of ).