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Municipalities of Finland - Definition and Overview |
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The municipalities (kunta in Finnish, kommun in Swedish) represent the local level of self government in Finland and also act as the basic regional administrative units of the country. Municipalities control many community services, such as schools and health care, but they do not maintain roads, set laws or keep police forces. Municipalities were originally parishes. The old word for a municipality is pitäjä, "keeper", because when the system was instituted, one municipality kept one minister.
In 2003 there are 446 Municipalities in Finland. Of these 111 are towns, 44 are bilingual and 19 are unilingually Finland-Swedish. Until 1977 municipalities were divided into towns (kaupunki/stad), market towns (kauppala/köping) and country municipalities (maalaiskunta/landskommun). The market towns were abolished and renamed to towns. The rest of the municipalities were classed as "other municipalities". From 1995 onwards only "municipality" is recogniced by law and any municipality that wishes so can call itself a town.
Municipalities by Regions
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Example Usage of Municipalities |
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recreation4sale: THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING: Municipalities receiving PARC grants must have a current open .. http://bit.ly/6nS4fP |
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ainarsbr: Prepared news statistics about company registration after Territorial reform in Latvia. 25% of new Municipalities have negative tendencies.. |
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Berlaymont: European Investment FEMIP secures a EUR 100 million package to help modernise Municipalities in Syria http://bit.ly/4IjStP |
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