Borough
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
A borough is a local government administrative subdivision used in the Canadian province of Quebec, in some states of the United States, and formerly in New Zealand. In the United Kingdom, boroughs are also to be found in England and Northern Ireland.
As a suffix, -borough (or -brough) appears in the name of a number of towns and cities in England; in the South of England it is usually found in the form -bury. The suffix -bury is also to be found in the New England region of the United States, whilst -burg (or -burgh) is more common in the American South and West.
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Pronunciation
In 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 /brə/.
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 boroughs
Canada
In Quebec, the term borough is used as the formal translation into English of the French arrondissement, an administrative subdivision of a major city.
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, the name "borough" is applied to various different types of local government district. There are 32 London boroughs, which together with the City of London make up the Greater London area. One of the boroughs is formally known as the City of Westminster.
Elsewhere in England, as well as in Northern Ireland, a number of district and unitary authority councils have borough status. This status, which originally denoted towns with a certain level of local government, below that of a city, is nowadays just a formal style which the area is entitled to use. The metropolitan county areas of England are divided into metropolitan boroughs (or metropolitan districts), all of which have borough or city status. Several unitary authorities in Wales have adopted the style of county borough, although this also does not indicate any special status.
For Scottish usage of a cognate term, see burgh.
The United States
In some states of the U.S., such as Pennsylvania and New Jersey, a self-governing city or town is called a borough. In Connecticut a borough is separately incorporated portion of a town with limited self-government, similar to a village in Michigan or Wisconsin. In some states, boroughs may be grouped together under a governing town or township. In yet other places "borough" is simply the designation of the municipality, comparable to "town" or "village."
The City of New York is made up of five boroughs, each of which is coterminous with a county of the State of New York. The boroughs are:
- The Bronx (Bronx County)
- Brooklyn (Kings County)
- Manhattan (New York County)
- Queens (Queens County)
- Staten Island (Richmond County)
These boroughs are almost identical in structure and government to the Bezirke/Boroughs found in Berlin, Germany.
Alaska
| See: | List of Alaska boroughs and census areas |
Boroughs are the Alaskan counterpart to counties in other states; they have varying degrees of autonomy and devolved power. Each borough has a borough seat, which serves a purpose similar to a county seat in other states. The Municipality of Anchorage is a consolidated city-borough, despite not having the word "borough" in its name. Sitka, Juneau and Yakutat are also consolidated city-boroughs.
However, unlike the other states, most of the land area of the state is not under any local government. This vast area, larger than France and Germany combined, is referred to by the state as the unorganized borough. Starting with the 1970 census, the United States Census Bureau divided the unorganized borough into census areas for statistical purposes. Upon statehood in 1959, Alaska consisted of one vast unorganized borough and over the ensuing years the existing boroughs were carved out of it. The framers of Alaska's constitution adopted its borough model to avoid perceived problems with local government in the Lower 48 and envisioned several unorganized boroughs as mechanisms for the state to regionalize services in the Alaskan Bush, but this never materialized; some parts of the Bush are now included in boroughs but most of it is still unorganized.
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 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
Municipal boroughs
In England, 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 in 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. 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. The older form of borough then became known as a municipal borough.
As part of a large-scale reform of local government in England in 1974, both county boroughs and municipal boroughs were abolished. However, a former borough retained the right to the title, as well as some of its traditional dignities, such as its coat of arms.
Parliamentary boroughs
From 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 boroughs
In 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", subdivided 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 Zealand
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 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 name
There 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.
Etymology
The 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.
The English borough and the Scots burgh are derived from the Old English word burh (with dialectal variants including burg, beorh, beorg, and byrig). The Old English word was originally used for a fortified town, and was related to the verb beorgan (cf. Dutch and German bergen), meaning "to keep, save, 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, 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).
See also
- Boroughs incorporated in England and Wales 1835 - 1882
- Boroughs incorporated in England and Wales 1882 - 1974
- Burgh
- List of burghs in Scotland
- Boroughs in New York City
| Subnational entity | ||
|---|---|---|
| Banner | Borough | Burgh | Canton | Circuit | City | Commune | Community | County | Council | Croft | Department | District | Division | Duchy | Governorate | Hamlet | Municipality | Neighbourhood | Parish | Prefecture | Province | Region | Republic | State | Subdistrict | Territory | Town | Township | Village | Voivodship | Ward | ||
| Autonomous: | banner | city | community | county | prefecture | province | region | republic | ward | |
| Civil: | parish | township | |
| Federal: | capital | district | capital district | capital territory | |
| Local: | council | |
| Metropolitan: | borough | county | |
| National: | capital district | capital territory | |
| Rural: | council | district | municipality | |
| Residential: | community | |
| Urban: | area (US: Urbanized Area) | district | |
| edit | See also: List of terms for subnational entities, List of subnational entities, Matrix of subnational entities | |
