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Boroughs are to be found in the United Kingdom, more specifically in England and Northern Ireland. Boroughs also exist in the Canadian province of Quebec, in some states of the United States, in Israel, and formerly in New Zealand. Several places in Britain owe part of their name to borough, but with a variety of spellings; e.g.:
A few places, e.g. Brough and Bury, are named exclusively for their being a borough.
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.
PronunciationIn many parts of England, "borough" is pronounced as IPA: [bʌɹə] (listen ) as an independent word, and as /bɹə/ when forming a suffixal part of a place-name. As a suffix, "-brough" is usually pronounced /bɹə/. In the United States, "borough" is pronounced as /ˈbɝoʊ/ (or as /ˈbʌɻoʊ/ in some areas, notably New York City). When appearing as the suffix "-burg(h)" in place-names, it's pronounced as [bɝg]. Present-day boroughsCanadaIn Quebec, the term borough is used as the formal translation into English of the French arrondissement, an administrative division of a major city. It was previously used in Metropolitan Toronto, Ontario, to denote suburban municipalities. See List of Montreal boroughs and List of Quebec City boroughs United KingdomIn the United Kingdom, the name "borough" is applied to various types of local government districts. In England there are three types of boroughs: London Boroughs and metropolitan and non-metropolitan boroughs. In Greater London, there are 32 London boroughs, including the City of Westminster. These were created in 1965. Elsewhere in England a number of district and unitary authority councils are called "borough". Historically, this was a status that denoted towns with a certain type of local government (a municipal corporation). Since 1974, it has been a purely ceremonial style granted by royal charter, which entitles the council chairman to bear the title of mayor. Districts may apply to the Crown for the grant of borough status upon advice of the Privy Council. Districts with borough status within the six metropolitan counties are known as metropolitan boroughs; non-metropolitan districts granted a charter are simply known as boroughs. In Northern Ireland, local government was reorganised in 1973. Under the legislation that created the twenty-six districts, a district council whose area included an existing municipal borough 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 English districts. Several unitary authorities in Wales are called county boroughs. Apart from the title of the authority and its civic head, there is no difference in powers between these and the other Welsh unitary county councils. A number of boroughs have additionally been granted the higher status of a city. For Scottish usage of a cognate term, see burgh. The United StatesThe word "borough" has many meanings relating to local government in the United States. Since the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution makes local government for the most part a matter for the states 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:
AustraliaIn Australia, the term borough is an occasionally used term for a local government area. There is only one borough in Australia; The Borough of Queenscliffe in Victoria. IsraelUnder Israeli law, inherited from British Mandate municipal law, the possibility of creating a municipal borough exists. However, no borough was actually created under law until 2005, when Neve Monosson, a communal settlement (Heb: yishuv kehilati) founded in 1953, was declared to be an autonomous municipal borough (Heb: vaad rova ironi), within its merger with the town of Yehud. Similar structures have been created under different types of legal status over the years in Israel, notably Kiryat Haim in Haifa, Jaffa in Tel Aviv-Yafo and Ramot and Gilo in Jerusalem. However, Neve Monosson is the first example of a full municipal borough actually declared under law by the Minister of the Interior. 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. Historical boroughsIn 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 Five Burghs of the Danelaw 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. England and WalesMunicipal boroughsIn 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 Royal Charter. These boroughs were generally governed by a self-selecting corporation (i.e., when a member died or resigned his replacement would be by co-option). Sometimes boroughs were governed by bailiffs or headboroughs. Debates on the Reform Bill (eventually the Reform Act 1832) had highlighted the variations in systems of governance of towns, and a Royal Commission was set up to investigate the issue. This resulted in a regularisation of municipal government (Municipal Corporations Act 1835), 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 petition Parliament to be given borough status. The 178 reformed boroughs, and those that followed them, became known as municipal boroughs. A number of unreformed boroughs remained after 1835, these being finally abolished in 1886. The reform of county government in 1888 established the county borough, a city or town that had a corporation as any other borough, but with additional powers equivalent to those of a county council. As part of a large-scale reform of local government in England and Wales in 1974, both county boroughs and municipal boroughs were abolished. However, the civic traditions of many boroughs were continued by the grant of a charter to their successor district councils. In smaller boroughs, a town council was formed for the area of the abolished borough, while charter trustees 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 Order in Council or Royal Licence to use the former borough coat of arms. Parliamentary boroughsFrom 1265, two burgesses from each borough were summoned to the Parliament of England, alongside two knights from each county. Representation in the House of Commons 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 Industrial Revolution 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 rotten boroughs. The Reform Act 1832 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 North 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 boroughsIn 1899, as part of a reform of local government in the County of London, the various parishes in the county were reorganised as a new entity, the metropolitan borough. These became reorganised as London Boroughs 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. New ZealandNew 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 enclaves separate from their surrounding counties. In the 1980s, some boroughs and cities began to be merged with their surrounding counties to form districts 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 Kawerau District, an enclave within Whakatane District, continues to follow the tradition of a small town council that does not include surrounding rural area. Borough as a place nameThere is a neighbourhood in the London Borough of Southwark simply called The Borough, south of London Bridge across the Thames from the City. There are several villages in England, such as those in Cumbria and the East Riding of Yorkshire, called Brough, pronounced [bɹʌf]. El Burgo in Spain is across the river Ucero from the smaller City of Osma; also in Spain lies the city of Burgos. See also below under the places mentioned in the next section on Etymology. EtymologyThe word borough has cognates in other Germanic languages. For example, burgh in Scots, Burg in German and borg in both Danish and Swedish; the equivalent word is also to be found in Frisian, Dutch, Norwegian, and Icelandic. Alternate forms and spellings in English include bury and burrow. The English borough and the Scots burgh are derived from the Anglian 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 Middle Ages, including brog in Irish, bwr or bwrc, meaning "wall, rampart" in Welsh, bourg in French, burg in Catalan, borgo in Italian, and burgo in Spanish (hence the place-name Burgos). 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 iceberg). ReferencesSee also
Types of country subdivision
Contemporary Historical Boldface indicates a type used by ten or more countries; loanwords in italics. es:Borough fr:Borough it:Borough lb:Borough nl:Borough pt:Borough ru:Баро simple:Borough fi:Borough sv:Kommundelsnämnd zh:自治城镇
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