Civil township
A civil township is a widely used unit of local government in the United States that is subordinate to a county, most often in the northern and midwestern parts of the country. The term town is used in New England, New York, as well as Wisconsin to refer to the equivalent of the civil township in these states; Minnesota uses "town" officially but often uses it and "township" interchangeably. Specific responsibilities and the degree of autonomy vary in each state. Civil townships are distinct from survey townships, but in states that have both, the boundaries often coincide, especially in Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois, and may completely geographically subdivide a county. The U.S. Census Bureau classifies civil townships as minor civil divisions. Currently, there are 20 states with civil townships, including Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.
Township functions are generally overseen by a governing board and a clerk, trustee, or mayor. Township officers frequently include justice of the peace, road commissioner, assessor, and constable, in addition to surveyor. In the 20th century, many townships also added a township administrator or supervisor to the officers as an executive for the board. In some cases, townships run local libraries, senior citizen services, youth services, disabled citizen services, and cemetery services, besides emergency assistance. In some states, a township and a municipality that is coterminous with that township may wholly or partially consolidate their operations.
Midwestern and central
Depending on the state, the township government has varying degrees of authority.In the Upper Midwestern states near the Great Lakes, civil townships, are often, but not always, overlaid on survey townships. The degree to which these townships are functioning governmental entities varies from state to state and in some cases even within a state. For example, townships in the northern part of Illinois are active in providing public services—such as road maintenance, after-school care, and senior services—whereas townships in southern Illinois frequently delegate these services to the county. Most townships in Illinois also provide services such as snow removal, senior transportation, and emergency services to households residing in unincorporated parts of the county. The townships in Illinois each have a township board, whose board members were formerly called township trustees, and a single township supervisor. In contrast, civil townships in Indiana are operated in a relatively consistent manner statewide and tend to be well organized, with each served by a single township trustee and a three-member board.
Civil townships in these states are generally not incorporated, and nearby cities may annex land in adjoining townships with relative ease. In Michigan, however, general law townships are corporate entities, and some can become reformulated as charter townships, a status intended to protect against annexation from nearby municipalities and which grants the township some home rule powers similar to cities. In Wisconsin, civil townships are known as "towns" rather than townships, but they function essentially the same as in neighboring states. In Minnesota, state statute refers to such entities as towns yet requires them to have a name in the form "Name Township". In both documents and conversation, "town" and "township" are used interchangeably. Minnesota townships can be either Non-Urban or Urban, but this is not reflected in the township's name. Similarly, in Ohio, some townships qualify for urban township status, affording limited home rule government. A city or village is overlaid onto a township unless it withdraws by establishing a paper township. Where the paper township does not extend to the city limits, property owners pay taxes for both the township and municipality, though these overlaps are sometimes overlooked by mistake. Ten other states also allow townships and municipalities to overlap.
In Kansas, some civil townships provide services such as road maintenance and fire protection services not provided by the county.
Northeastern states
New England and New York
In New England and New York, states are generally subdivided into towns and cities, which are municipalities that provide most local services. With the exception of a few remote areas of New Hampshire and Vermont and about half of Maine, all of New England lies within the borders of an incorporated municipality. New England has counties, though in southern New England, they are strictly used as dividing lines for judicial systems and statistical purposes, while in northern New England, they often handle other limited functions, such as law enforcement, education and some public facilities in addition to judicial systems. New England also has cities, most of which are towns whose residents have voted to replace the town meeting form of government with a city form. Maine has a third type of township called a plantation, which previously existed in other New England states, that has more limited self-governance than other New England towns.In portions of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, county subdivisions that are not incorporated are occasionally called townships, or by other terms such as "gore", "grant", "location", or "purchase".
The State of New York is subdivided into counties, which are subdivided into cities and towns—except for New York City, whose five coextensive counties for state government purposes are municipal boroughs for city government purposes. As in New England, the term "town" equates to "township" in most other states. Additionally, New Yorkers colloquially use the term "township" to mean "town". Townships and hamlets are unincorporated areas within a town or towns. Because towns are administrative divisions of a county, town boundaries cannot cross county lines. In addition to administrative subdivisions, New York State also has cities. Cities in New York are fully autonomous municipal corporations and, thus, are able to cross county lines and whose governments fully independent of county control.
Finally, New York and Vermont also have villages, which are smaller communities lying within the boundaries of a town that provide additional government services not provided by their parent town, such as sewage, fire, law enforcement, garbage collection, public facilities, water and building code enforcement. In Vermont, most current cities were actually former villages that broke off from their parent town. Connecticut has boroughs and non-consolidated cities, although these communities are not as autonomous as villages in New York and Vermont, and today there are only eight non-consolidated boroughs and one non-consolidated city.
Pennsylvania and New Jersey
A Pennsylvania township is a unit of local government, responsible for services such as police departments, local road and street maintenance. It acts the same as a city or borough. Townships were established based on convenient geographical boundaries and vary in size from six to fifty-two square miles.A New Jersey township is similar, in that it is a form of municipal government equal in status to a village, town, borough, or city, and provides similar services to a Pennsylvania township, and varies in size from one-tenth to one hundred square miles.
Southern states
In the Southern U.S., outside cities and towns there is generally no local government other than the county.Arkansas and North Carolina
are the divisions of a county. Each township includes unincorporated areas; some may have incorporated cities or towns within part of their boundaries. Arkansas townships have limited purposes in modern times. However, the U.S. census does list Arkansas population based on townships. Townships are also of value for historical purposes in terms of genealogical research. Each town or city is within one or more townships in an Arkansas county based on census maps and publications.North Carolina is no exception to that rule, but it does have townships as minor geographical subdivisions of counties, including both unincorporated territory and also land within the bounds of incorporated cities and towns. Every county is divided into townships as mandated since the North Carolina Constitution of 1868. Some urbanized counties such as Mecklenburg County now number their townships rather than using names. Townships all over the state used to have some official organization and duties but now are only considered ceremonial divisions of each county. Township names are still used quite extensively at the county government level in North Carolina as a way of determining and dividing up areas for administrative purposes; primarily for collecting county taxes, determining fire districts, for real estate purposes such as categorizing land deeds, land surveys and other real estate documents, and for voter registration purposes. In most areas of North Carolina that are outside any municipal limit, townships are used to determine voter polling places, and in most instances county election boards divide up their voter precincts by township. However, there is no government per se at the township level in North Carolina, and there are no elected or appointed offices associated with townships.