List of municipal districts in Alberta

A municipal district is the most common form of all rural municipality statuses used in the Canadian Province of Alberta. Alberta's municipal districts, most of which are branded as counties, are predominantly rural areas that may include either farmland, Crown land or a combination of both depending on their geographic location. They may also include country residential subdivisions and unincorporated communities, some of which are recognized as hamlets^[1] by Alberta Municipal Affairs.

Municipal districts are created when predominantly rural areas with populations of at least 1,000 people, where a majority of their residential buildings are on parcels of land greater than 1,850 m², apply to Alberta Municipal Affairs for municipal district status under the authority of the Municipal Government Act.^[2] Applications for municipal district status are approved via orders in council made by the Lieutenant Governor in Council under recommendation from the Minister of Municipal Affairs.^[2]

Alberta has 64 municipal districts with a cumulative population of 447,051 and an average population of 6,985.^[3] Alberta's largest and smallest municipal districts are Rocky View County and the Municipal District (M.D.) of Ranchland No. 66 with populations of 34,597 and 86 respectively.^[3]

439 elected officials (seven mayors, 57 reeves and 375 councillors) ensure municipal district governance throughout the province.^[4]

Branding

An order in council to incorporate any municipality must give the municipality an official name.^[2] Of Alberta's 64 municipal districts, 18 of them still brand themselves as municipal districts in their official names, while 46 of them have branded themselves as counties in their official names.

The use of the county term in the official names of 46 municipal districts (and two specialized municipalities) has partially led to a common belief that a county is its own separate municipal status type, which is not the case. The other major contributor to this common belief is that a county was once a former municipal status type in Alberta prior to the County Act being repealed in the mid-1990s. Those municipalities that were once officially incorporated as counties were continued under the Municipal Government Act (MGA) as municipal districts and were permitted to retain the term county in their official names.^[5]

List of municipal districts

The below table is a list of only those rural municipalities in Alberta that are incorporated as municipal districts.

Mackenzie County, Strathcona County and the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo are not listed because they are incorporated as specialized municipalities, not municipal districts. For more information on specialized municipalities, see Specialized municipalities of Alberta.

Alberta's seven improvement districts and three special areas are also not listed because they are their own separate type of rural municipality and not subset types of the municipal district status. For more information on special areas, see Special Areas Board.

See also

• List of communities in Alberta
• Specialized municipalities of Alberta
• Special Areas Board
• List of hamlets in Alberta
• List of Indian reserves in Alberta
• List of census divisions of Alberta
• List of designated places in Alberta
• List of mayors in Alberta
• Administrative divisions of Canada

References

External links

• Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties (AAMDC)

• AAMDC - The Members

• Alberta Municipal Affairs