County seat

A county seat is an administrative center, or seat of government, for a county or civil parish. The term is used in the United States, Canada, Taiwan and Romania. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, county towns have a similar function.

Function

In the United States, counties are the administrative subdivisions of a state. Counties administer state law at the local level as part of the decentralization of state authority. In many states, state government is further decentralized below the county level by dividing counties into incorporated cities and towns and/or unincorporated civil townships, in order to provide local government services. The city, town, or populated place that houses county government is known as the seat of its respective county. Generally, the county legislature, county courthouse, sheriff's department headquarters, and hall of records, are located in the county seat, though some functions may also be conducted in other parts of the county, especially if it is geographically large.

Municipality

A municipality is usually an urban administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction. The term municipality is also used to mean the governing, ruling body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district. The term is derived from French "municipalité" and Latin "municipalis".

The English word "Municipality" derives from the Latin social contract "municipium", meaning duty holders, referring to the Latin communities that supplied Rome with troops in exchange for their own incorporation into the Roman state (granting Roman citizenship to the inhabitants) while permitting the communities to retain their own local governments (a limited autonomy).

A municipality can be any political jurisdiction from a sovereign state, such as the Principality of Monaco, or a small village, such as West Hampton Dunes, New York.

The territory over which a municipality has jurisdiction may encompass