Municipalities in the Netherlands
There are 388 regular municipalities (gemeenten) (January 2017;Meierijstad) and 3 public bodies (openbare lichamen), also referred to as special municipalities (bijzondere gemeenten), in the Netherlands. Municipalities are the second-level administrative division in the Netherlands and are subdivisions of their respective provinces. Their duties are delegated to them by the central government and they are ruled by a municipal council that is elected every four years. Municipal mergers have reduced the total number of municipalities by two-thirds since the first official boundaries were created in the mid 19th century. Municipalities themselves are informally subdivided into districts and neighbourhoods for administrative and statistical purposes.
These municipalities come in a wide range of sizes, Westervoort is the smallest at 7.84 km2 (3.03 sq mi) and Súdwest-Fryslân the largest with an area of 841.56 km2 (324.93 sq mi). Schiermonnikoog is both the least populous municipality and has the lowest population density with 938 inhabitants for a density of 21/km2 (54/sq mi). Amsterdam has the highest population with 810,909 residents, whereas The Hague is most densely populated with a density of 6,131/km2 (15,880/sq mi).
As a second level administrative division municipalities are the third tier of public administration in the Netherlands after the central government and the provinces. The Netherlands is a decentralized unitary state, which means that the central government is supreme and delegates certain tasks to lower levels of government by law. The different levels do, however, make work agreements, which give municipalities a certain degree of independence in their policy decisions. Municipalities are responsible for a wide variety of public services, which include land-use planning, public housing, management and maintenance of local roads, waste management and social security. After the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles in 2010 three special municipalities (officially public bodies) were formed. These municipalities function the same as regular municipalities and are grouped together as the Caribbean Netherlands and are not part of a province.
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