Section de commune

A deelgemeente (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈdeːlɣəˌmeːntə], literally part-municipality) or section de commune (French) is a subdivision of a municipality in Belgium and, until March 2014, in the Netherlands as well. The equivalent in English is borough.

Each municipality of the region of Flanders that existed as a separate entity on 1 January 1961 but no longer existed as such after 1 January 1977 is considered a deelgemeente within most municipalities.

In general, these deelgemeenten are not a level of administration. Only in the municipality of Antwerp are they the lowest level of administration and are called districts.

The term deelgemeente is used in Dutch to refer to such a subdivision of a municipality anywhere in Belgium, municipalities having been merged throughout the country in the 1970s.

In English (and French) there is no directly equivalent term, and deelgemeente is not normally used when talking about former municipalities in Wallonia or the Brussels Capital Region. In French, the term ancienne commune (former municipality) or section de commune (section of municipality) is generally used.

In the Netherlands, deelgemeenten were administrative divisions that could be instituted by any municipality. The city of Amsterdam was the first to do this. In the early 1980s, the municipality was divided into fifteen deelgemeenten. This amount was decreased to eight in 2010. Seven of these were officially called stadsdeel.

Rotterdam followed in the 1990s and was divided into fourteen deelgemeenten.Deelgemeenten had their own mayor, the deelgemeentevoorzitter, their own aldermen, deelgemeentewethouders, and their own elected assembly, the deelgemeenteraad. Deelgemeenten were abolished in March 2014, after the 2014 municipal elections. Since 2014, districts of Amsterdam have a bestuurscommissie (literally "governance commission"), and the deelgemeenten of Rotterdam are now called gebieden (literally "areas").

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