Incorporated town

An incorporated town is a town that is a municipal corporation.

Incorporated towns are a form of local government in Canada, which is a responsibility of provincial rather than federal government.

An incorporated town in the United States is a municipality, that is, one with a charter received from the state, similar to a city. An incorporated town will have elected officials, as differentiated from an unincorporated community, which exists only by tradition and does not have elected officials at the town level. In some states, especially in midwestern and western states, civil townships may sometimes be called towns, but are generally not incorporated municipalities, but are administrative subdivisions and derive their authority from statute rather than from a charter. In New York and Wisconsin, "towns" are more similar in concept to townships in other states than to incorporated towns in most states (see Administrative divisions of New York, Political subdivisions of Wisconsin). In some other states, the term "town" is not used for municipalities.

Under California's Government Code Sections 34500-34504, the terms "city" and "town" are explicitly interchangeable, i.e. there is no legal distinction between an incorporated city and an incorporated town. California has 22 incorporated municipalities that are styled "Town of (Name)" instead of "City of (Name)".

In Illinois, an incorporated town is one of three types of incorporated municipalities. Incorporated towns were incorporated by a special acts of the Illinois General Assembly prior to the creation of the Illinois Municipal Code. Illinois' standard law on municipalities came into effect on July 1, 1872 and does not provide for the incorporation of municipal towns. Since the Municipal Code provides a standard way for citizens to incorporate a new city or village, but not a town, incorporated towns are far less common than city and village municipalities in Illinois.

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