Vermont municipality

A Vermont municipality is a particular type of New England municipality. It is the basic unit of local government.

Vermont contains 246 incorporated towns and cities. Nine are cities and 237 are towns. Collectively, these 246 municipalities cover the vast majority of, but not all of, the state's territory. There are some unincorporated areas in the sparsely populated mountainous regions of the state. Most of the unincorporated areas are in Essex County, in the northeastern part of the state. Bennington, Windham and Chittenden counties also contain smaller amounts of unincorporated territory. This territory includes five unincorporated townships and a handful of gores and grants. The remaining ten counties in the state are entirely incorporated (Bennington and Windham counties were also fully incorporated at one time, but lost that status when a town disincorporated). Fewer than 100 of the state's residents live in unincorporated areas.

Vermont is one of two New England states to have any type of incorporated general-purpose municipality below the town level, namely incorporated villages (Connecticut has incorporated boroughs). There are about 40 in the state. There were once nearly double that number.

Early town organization in Vermont proceeded in a different manner from that of the other New England states. In these areas, towns were often “chartered” long before any settlers moved into a particular area. This was very common in the mid to late 18th century. Once there were enough residents in a town to formally organize a town government, no further action was necessary to incorporate. This practice can lead to inconsistencies in the dates of incorporation for towns in this region. Dates given in reference sources sometime reflect the date the town was chartered – which may have been long before it was even settled – not the date its town government actually became active. In other parts of New England, it was not unheard of for “future towns” to be laid out along these lines, but such areas would not be formally incorporated as towns until they were sufficiently settled to organize a town government.

There are far fewer cities in Vermont than there are towns. Across Vermont as a whole, only about 5% of all incorporated municipalities are cities. In early colonial times, all incorporated municipalities in Vermont were towns; there were no cities. Burlington, for instance, was chartered as a town as early as 1785, but the city of Burlington was not chartered until 1865, as Vermont's second city. For many years prior to the 1860s Vermont had just one city, which was the city of Vergennes, incorporated in 1788.

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