Encyclopedia
A
borough is an administrative division used in various countries. Usually a borough is a single incorporated town, but certain large city corporations or municipalities are subdivided into boroughs, which enables certain municipal functions to be carried out by the borough and thus providing it with a certain level of autonomy. Boroughs exist in the
Canadian province of
Quebec, in some
states of the
United States, and formerly in
New Zealand. Boroughs are also to be found in the
United Kingdom, more specifically in
England and
Northern Ireland, and in
Israel. Borough is also a generic term for municipal regions, and a part of many place names, such as Borough of Queenscliffe in
Australia.
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 is more common in
Scotland and the
American South and
West. The ending -
boro is also common in the
American South, especially in
North Carolina. Borough is a rare surname, most common in the UK and USA; but derivatives of the word, such as Brough, are a little more common.
Pronunciation
In many parts of England, "borough" is pronounced as "Burrah" as an independent word, and as when forming a suffixal part of a place-name. As a suffix, "-brough" is usually pronounced .
In the United States, "borough" is pronounced as . When appearing as the suffix "-burg" in place-names, it's pronounced as .
Present-day boroughs
Canada
In
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 Kingdom
In the
United Kingdom, the name "borough" is applied to various types of local government district.
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 . 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 States
The word has numerous meanings in American state and local government.
In
Pennsylvania the term is used the way other states sometimes use the word "town," when that word is not used as a synonym for "city"; a borough is a self-governing municipality larger than a village but not populous enough to qualify for incorporation as a "city."
In
Connecticut, the term is used as states like
Michigan and
Wisconsin use the term "village." In most American uses of the term, a village is an incorporated, partially autonomous municipality which is subject to the supervisory authority of the township and
county in which it is located.
In
New Jersey, like Connecticut,
boroughs are independent municipalities that may have been created within a Township or from portions of multiple municipalities. However, unlike Connecticut, boroughs are autonomous from the township that borders them or sometimes even surrounds them.
In some states, boroughs may be grouped together under a governing township.
In the State of
New York, boroughs are special purpose counties that are subordinate to a municipality. The singular example is the City of Greater New York, which contains five counties
Bronx, Kings,
New York, Queens, and Richmond, under one municipality. The counties are commonly referred to by their respective borough names:
The Bronx,
Brooklyn,
Manhattan,
Queens, and
Staten Island. The creation of boroughs in the State of New York was occasioned by the enlargement of the City of New York into the City of Greater New York on January 1, 1898. Prior to that date, the City of New York consisted of the New York and Bronx counties only, the Bronx having been detached from Westchester County earlier in the 19th Century. Kings County was the City of Brooklyn prior to the January consolidation, while Queens County included the separate towns of Long Island City, Jamaica, Flushing, Far Rockaway, Newtown, Floral Park and what is now the adjacent area now comprising Nassau County. As a result of a referendum, Long Island City, Newtown, Flushing, Jamaica, and the Rockaway Peninsula of the Town of Hempstead became the borough of Queens in New York City on January 1, 1898. The part of Queens County that was not consolidated into New York City, consisting of the towns of North Hempstead and Oyster Bay and all of the Town of Hempstead, except the Rockaway Peninsula, was constituted as the new Nassau County in 1899. Richmond County was on its own prior to that date, and included three townships, and one major village. Subsequent to the January 1, 1898 consilidation date, the five counties became the Five Boroughs, and retained the minimum of county functions, the remainder having passed to the city at large, which retains its executive and council offices in the borough of Manhattan.
There are no county governments within New York City for legislative or executive purposes, but there are borough governments composed of a borough president, members of the
New York City Council which represent parts of the borough, and some others. The powers of the borough governments are inferior to the powers of the city-wide government. The boroughs of New York City are still treated as separate counties for judicial purposes, and for business and legal filings.
In
Alaska, the word "borough" is used instead of "county." Like counties, boroughs are administrative divisions of the state, but whereas most states use a three-tiered system of decentralization - state/county/township - Alaska only has the first two tiers - state/borough. This is due to the size and nature of Alaska, especially its low population density. The framers of the Alaska Constitution created the borough system to avoid perceived deficiencies of Lower 48 local government.
Each borough in Alaska has a borough seat, which is the administrative centre for the borough. The
Municipality of Anchorage is a consolidated city-borough, as are
Sitka, Juneau,
Haines and
Yakutat. In generic terms, a consolidated city-borough would be considered a "regional municipality" as opposed to a "metropolitan municipality" because the area is more rural in character than urban.
Most of the state's area, however, is part of the vast
Unorganized Borough, larger than
France and
Germany combined, which has no borough-level government at all. The
United States Census Bureau has divided the Unorganized Borough into eleven census areas for statistical purposes.
Australia
In
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.
Israel
Under 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 founded in 1953, was declared to be an autonomous municipal borough , 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 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 and Wales
Municipal boroughs
In 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 . Sometimes boroughs were governed by
bailiffs or headboroughs.
Debates on the Reform Bill 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 , 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 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 .
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", 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 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 .
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. Alternate forms and spellings in English include
bury and
burrow.The
English borough and the
Scots burgh are derived from the
Anglian word
burh . The word originally indicated a fortified town, and was related to the verb
beorgan , 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 .
Also related are the words
bourgeois and
belfry , and
burglar; more distantly, it is related to words meaning "hill" or "mountain" in a number of languages .
See also
- Boroughs incorporated in England and Wales 1835 - 1882
- Boroughs incorporated in England and Wales 1882 - 1974
- Boroughs in New York City
- Burgh
- List of burghs in Scotland
