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Township (Pennsylvania)

Pennsylvania Township
A map showing the location of the Commonwealth's of Pennsylvania, shaded in red, in their contiguous United States of America, shaded in vanilla. The Commonwealth realm of Canada, shaded in silver, is shown to the north, and the Unites 6 Mexican States, also shaded in solver, is shown to the south. The State of Alaska and the State of Hawaii are shown at the bottom left-hand corner, in their own boxes.
Category Second-level administrative division
Location Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

A Pennsylvania township or township under Pennsylvania laws is one class (with two forms) of the three types of municipalities codified (and commonly found as towns, villages, or hamlets), in Pennsylvania—smaller municipal class legal entities providing local self-government functions in the majority of land areas in the more rural regions. Townships act as the lowest level municipal corporations of governance of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, a U.S. state of the United States of America.

But Pennsylvania townships in seeming contradiction, often have far larger territorial area than its large cities, boroughs, and towns—because only a relatively few occupants are required to establish the mechanisms of self-government under its constitution. Larger populations are required to progress to first class townships, boroughs (towns) and cities. Further, that constitution dates to colonial times when most of the province of Pennsylvania was owned by Indians and new counties and new settlements were brought into being with steady regularity, and the first governments defined were very large, nearly county sized sparsely populated townships.

Along with more densely populated boroughs and cities in the state Pennsylvania townships are generally subordinate to or dependent upon the county level of government to one degree or another. Because of the way the political system progresses community growth and home rule politics under the commonwealths constitution, it is common to have a township and borough of the same or similar name, generally abutting, and often with the 'town-like' borough partially or wholly surrounded by the remaining (and more rural original) township it has split-off from. For a general in depth overview of townships, see civil townships.

Townships were established based on convenient local geographical boundaries within the borders of the 67 encompassing Pennsylvania counties, and typically vary in size from 6 to 40 square miles (16–104 km2). There are two classifications of townships, first class and second class. To become a first class township and operate under the powers of the "First Class Township Code" in Pennsylvania statute law, townships of the second class must have a population density of 300 inhabitants per square mile (120/km2) and voters must approve the change of classification in a referendum.


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