Municipalities of Finland

The municipalities (kunta in Finnish, kommun in Swedish) represent the local level of administration in Finland and act as the fundamental administrative units of the country. Municipalities control many community services, such as schools, health care and the water supply. They do not maintain roads, set laws or keep police forces, which tasks are the responsibility of the central government. A municipality is governed by an elected council (kunnanvaltuusto, kommunfullmäktige), which is legally autonomous and answers only to the voters. The size of the council is proportional to the population, the extremes being 9 in Sottunga and 85 in Helsinki. Municipal managers (kaupunginjohtaja, stadsdirektör for cities, kunnanjohtaja, kommunsdirektör for other municipalities) are civil servants named by the council.

Related Topics:
Finnish - Swedish - Finland - Sottunga - Helsinki - Civil servant

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As of 2005, there are 432 municipalities in Finland. Of these 114 are cities, 44 are bilingual and 19 are unilingually Finland-Swedish.

Related Topics:
As of 2005 - Cities - Bilingual - Finland-Swedish

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Municipalities were originally parishes. The old word for a municipality is pitäjä, 'keeper', because when the system was instituted, one municipality kept one minister. Until 1977 municipalities were divided into cities (kaupunki, stad), market towns (kauppala, köping) and rural municipalities (maalaiskunta, landskommun). The market towns were abolished and renamed as cities. The rest of the municipalities were classified as 'other municipalities'. From 1995 onwards only 'municipality' is recognized by law and any municipality is allowed to call itself a city if it so wishes.

Related Topics:
Parish - 1977 - 1995

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