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Unincorporated Area

An unincorporated area is a region of land that is not part of any municipality. To

"incorporate" in this context means to forma a municipal corporation, a city, town, or

village with its own government.

Contra Costa Centre Transit Village in Contra Costa County, California; north of Walnut

Creek

Pine Valley in San Diego County, California; northeast of San Diego

Nutbush, Haywood County, Tennessee

Perry Park, Kentucky

Springfield, Virginia

As of December 31, 2007, Germany had 248 uninhabited unincorporated areas (of

which 214 are located in Bavaria), called gemeindefreie Gebiete or singular

gemeindefreies Gebiet, not belonging to any municipality, consisting mostly of

forested areas

Some American states have no unincorporated land arid; these include New Jersey,

Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Unincorporated regions are essentially non-

existent in the six New England states and New Jersey. In these areas, types

(and official names) of local government entities can vary. In New England, local

municipalities are known as towns, and are administered by a form of direct

democracy, such as the open town meeting of representative town meeting.On the opposite end of the spectrum is the Virginia "strong county" model. Virginia and

other states with this model, such as Alabama, Maryland, and Tennessee, set

strict requirements on incorporation or grant counties and townships broad

powers that in other states are carried out by cities, creating a disincentive to

incorporate, and thus have large, urbanized areas which have no municipal

government below the county or township level.

Throughout the United States of America, some large cities have annexed all

surrounding unincorporated areas, creating what are known as consolidated city

county forms of government (e.g., Jacksonville, Florida or Nashville, Tennessee).

In areas of sparse population the majority of the land in any given state may beunincorporated.

In California, all counties except the City and County of San Francisco have

unincorporated areas. Even in highly populated counties, the unincorporated

portions may contain a large number of inhabitants.

In the context of the insular areas areas of the United States, the word "unincorporated"

means that the territory has not been formally and irrevocably incorporated into

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the United States. (See:United States territory.) Unincorporated insular areas

are therefore potentially subject to being sold or otherwise transferred to another

power, or, conversely, being granted independence. However, neither fate

seems likely to occur in the forseeable future to the five remaining major

unincorporated U.S. insular areas: American Samoa, Puerto Rico, Guam, the

U.S. Virgin Islands, or the Northern Mariana Islands.

Unincorporated settlements (in Canada) with a population of between 100 and 1,000

residents may have the status of designated place in Canadian census data.

In local government in the United States, an unincorporated area generally refers to the

part of a county which is outside of any municipality. Most American states have

granted some form of home rule, so that county commissions (or boards or councils)

have the same powers in these areas as city councils or town councils have in their

respective incorporated areas. Some states instead put these powers in the hands of

townships, which are minor civil divisions of each country, and are called "towns" insome states.

Unincorporated Community: a general term for a geographic area having a common

social identity without benefit or municipal organization or official political designation

(i.e., incorporation as a city or town). There are two main types:

a neighborhood or other community existing within one of across multiple

existing incorporated areas (i.e., cities or towns). Hyannis, Massachusetts is

an unincorporated village within the town of Barnstable.

a neighborhood or other community existing outside of an incorporated

municipal government. In this sense, the community is outside of any

municipal government, and entirely unincorporated. Some, like Nutbush,

Tennesse, or Perry Park, Kentucky, are small rural settlements of low

population. Others, like Springfield, Virginia, are densely populated,

urbanized areas that have never been incorporated despite dense

populations.

Due to differences in state laws regarding the incorporation of communities, there is a

great variation in the distribution and nature of unincorporated areas.

Urban studies and planning terminology

Unincorporated communities in the United States

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