municipality tier

The municipality tier holds the units of local self-government: a council with defined powers over a defined territory, covering a settlement and the land belonging to it.

Size does not decide membership of this tier. A village of two hundred and a city of ten million occupy the same level, because both are the unit at which local administration happens, and because that is what makes them comparable across countries.

The tier covers its country without gaps, so every address falls in exactly one. What the unit is called locally, and whether it is a city, a town or a commune, is the region type.