A ward in the United Kingdom is an electoral district at sub-national level represented by one or more councillors. It is the primary unit of British administrative and electoral geography (except in the Isles of Scilly).
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The London boroughs, the metropolitan boroughs and the non-metropolitan districts (including most unitary authorities) are divided into wards for local elections. However, county council elections (as well as for several unitary councils, which were formerly county councils, such as the Isle of Wight Council and Shropshire Council), instead use the term 'electoral division'. In shire county areas with both wards and electoral divisions, the two types of divisions may bear no relation to each other, but generally wards will be used as building blocks for county electoral divisions, or will be used as-is but electing fewer councillors.
In urban areas the wards within a local authority area generally contain roughly the same number of electors and elect three councillors. In local authorities with mixed urban and rural areas the number of councillors may vary from one to three depending on the size of the electorate. A ward can be coterminous with a civil parish or consist of groups of civil parishes. Larger civil parishes (such as Shrewsbury) can be divided into two or more wards.
The City of London has its own type of wards, which are ancient and permanent sub-divisions of the City, which has a sui generis form of local government.
Civil parishes in England are sometimes divided into wards for elections to the parish council (or town/city council). They need not bear any relation to district wards or electoral divisions.
The four most northerly ancient counties of England — Cumberland, Westmorland, County Durham and Northumberland — were divided into administrative units called wards instead of hundreds or wapentakes, as in other counties. Wards were areas originally organised for military purposes, each centred on a castle.[1]
In Wales the term 'electoral division' is used.
Communities in Wales (the equivalent to the civil parish in England) are sometimes divided into wards for elections to the community council.
All of Scotland is divided into wards for local government elections with each ward electing 3 or 4 councillors by Single Transferable Vote.
Districts in Northern Ireland are divided into electoral areas[2], with each electing between 5 and 7 councillors by Single Transferable Vote. These are themselves sub-divided into wards, but these wards have no official function.