Consolidated city-county

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In United States local government, a consolidated city-county (also known as either a city-parish or a consolidated government in Louisiana, depending on the locality,[1] or a unified municipality, unified home rule borough, or city and borough[2][3] in Alaska) is formed when one or more cities and their surrounding county (parish in Louisiana, borough in Alaska) merge into one unified jurisdiction. As such it is a type of unitary authority that has the governmental powers of both a municipal corporation and a county.[4]

A consolidated city-county is different from an independent city, although the latter may result from consolidation of a city and a county and may also have the same powers as a consolidated city-county. An independent city is a city not deemed by its state to be located within the boundary of any county and considered a primary administrative division of its state.[5] A consolidated city-county differs from an independent city in that the city and county both nominally exist, although they have a consolidated government, whereas in an independent city, the county does not even nominally exist.[4] Furthermore, a consolidated city-county may still contain independent municipalities maintaining some governmental powers that did not merge with the rest of the county.[6]

Not considering Hawaii, which has no independent municipalities, the Midwest and Upper South have the highest concentration of large consolidated city-county governments in the United States, including Indianapolis, Indiana; Nashville, Tennessee; Louisville, Kentucky; Kansas City, Kansas; and Lexington, Kentucky. The largest consolidated city-county in the United States by population is Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, while the largest by land area is Sitka, Alaska.

  1. ^ "Parish Government Structure - Police Jury Association of Louisiana". www.lpgov.org. Retrieved April 22, 2024.
  2. ^ Alaska's Local Government, from Alaska Municipal League
  3. ^ Governance in Anchorage
  4. ^ a b "Cities 101 -- Consolidations". National League of Cities. December 14, 2016.
  5. ^ States, Counties, and Statistically Equivalent Entities, from the United States Census Bureau
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference PopEstimates was invoked but never defined (see the help page).