What is "borough"

Borough \Bor"ough\, n. [See Borrow.] (O. Eng. Law)

1. An association of men who gave pledges or sureties to the king for the good behavior of each other.

2. The pledge or surety thus given.
   --Blackstone. Tomlins.

Borough \Bor"ough\, n. [OE. burgh, burw, boru, port, town, burrow, AS. burh, burg; akin to Icel., Sw., & Dan. borg, OS. & D. burg, OHG. puruc, purc, MHG. burc, G. burg, Goth. ba['u]rgs; and from the root of AS. beorgan to hide, save, defend, G. bergen; or perh. from that of AS. beorg hill, mountain. [root]95. See Bury, v. t., and cf. Burrow, Burg, Bury, n., Burgess, Iceberg, Borrow, Harbor, Hauberk.]

1. In England, an incorporated town that is not a city; also, a town that sends members to parliament; in Scotland, a body corporate, consisting of the inhabitants of a certain district, erected by the sovereign, with a certain jurisdiction; in America, an incorporated town or village, as in Pennsylvania and Connecticut.
   --Burrill. Erskine.

2. The collective body of citizens or inhabitants of a borough; as, the borough voted to lay a tax.

   Close borough, or Pocket borough, a borough having the right of sending a member to Parliament, whose nomination is in the hands of a single person.

   Rotten borough, a name given to any borough which, at the time of the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832, contained but few voters, yet retained the privilege of sending a member to Parliament.

Old English burg, burh "a dwelling or dwellings within a fortified enclosure," from Proto-Germanic *burgs "hill fort, fortress" (cognates: Old Frisian burg "castle," Old Norse borg "wall, castle," Old High German burg, buruc "fortified place, citadel," German Burg "castle," Gothic baurgs "city"), from PIE root *bhergh- (2) "high," with derivatives referring to hills, hill forts, fortified elevations (source also of Old English beorg "hill;" see barrow (n.2)).\n

\nIn German and Old Norse, chiefly as "fortress, castle;" in Gothic, "town, civic community." Meaning shifted in Middle English from "fortress," to "fortified town," to simply "town" (especially one possessing municipal organization or sending representatives to Parliament). In U.S. (originally Pennsylvania, 1718) often an incorporated town; in Alaska, however, it is the equivalent of a county. The Scottish form is burgh. The Old English dative singular byrig survives in many place names as -bury.

n. 1 (context obsolete English) A fortified town. 2 (context rare English) A town or city. 3 A town having a municipal corporation and certain traditional rights. 4 An administrative district in some cities, e.g., London.

1. n. one of the administrative divisions of a large city

2. an English town that forms the constituency of a member of Parliament

A borough in some U.S. states is a unit of local government or other administrative division below the level of the state. The term is currently used in six states:

• A type of municipality: Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania (also formerly Minnesota)
• A subdivision of a consolidated city, corresponding to another present or previous political subdivision: New York and Virginia
• In Alaska only, a borough is a county-equivalent.

A borough (sometimes abbreviated Boro on road signs), in the context of local government in the U.S. state of New Jersey, refers to one of five types and one of eleven forms of municipal government (in addition to those established under a Special Charter).

Though it is now the most common form of government in New Jersey, by 1875 only 17 boroughs had been created, all by special acts of the legislature. These original boroughs were subdivisions of townships, established by state charter; Elizabeth was the first, established by royal charter in 1740, within the now defunct Elizabeth Township. About half of them had been dissolved, or changed into other forms of government — often cities. In 1875, a constitutional amendment prohibited such local or special legislation.

The Borough Act of 1878 allowed any township (or portion thereof) with a land area of no more than four square miles and a population not exceeding 5,000, to establish itself as an independent borough through a petition and referendum process on a self-executing basis. As enacted, a borough would be governed by an elected mayor (serving a one-year term) and a six-member council (elected to staggered three-year terms). The mayor would preside at council meetings, but had no vote except to break ties.

In 1894, the Legislature passed an act requiring each township to have a single school district. A wave of borough incorporations followed, as one part of several townships decided that it would prefer the cost of being a separate municipality to paying for the other schools; this wave was called boroughitis by commentators at the time.

The Borough Act of 1897 amended the original Act, eliminating the self-executing incorporation feature of the earlier legislation. Henceforth, newly incorporated boroughs (or those seeking to dissolve or increase or decrease in size) required approval of the legislature. The elected mayor and six-member council were retained, with the mayor now serving a two-year term.

The Borough Act of 1987 was created to streamline borough law and clear away amendments, changes and contradictory rules that had accumulated over the century of the Borough's existence as a form of government. The 1987 Act allowed for the delegation of executive responsibility to an appointed administrator.

Traditionally, voters elect a mayor and six council-members at-large in a partisan election. Only two boroughs, Roselle and Roselle Park have ward structures with councils having 5 ward members and one at-large. The borough system has a weak mayor and the council performs most legislative and executive functions. This form of local government is used by 39% of the municipalities in New Jersey.

A borough is an administrative division in various countries. In principle, the term borough designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely.

The word borough derives from common Germanic *Burg, meaning fort: compare with bury, burgh and brough (England), burgh (Scotland), Burg (Germany), borg (Scandinavia), burcht (Dutch), boarch (West Frisian), and the Germanic borrowing present in neighbouring Indo-european languages such as borgo (Italian), bourg (French), burgo (Spanish and Portuguese), burg (Romanian), purg ( Kajkavian) and durg (दर्ग) (Hindi) and arg (ارگ) ( Persian). The incidence of these words as suffixes to place names (for example, Aldeburgh, Bamburgh, Tilbury, Tilburg, Strasbourg ( Strossburi in the local dialect), Luxembourg, Edinburgh, Grundisburgh, Hamburg, Gothenburg) usually indicates that they were once fortified settlements.

In the Middle Ages, boroughs were settlements in England that were granted some self-government; burghs were the Scottish equivalent. In medieval England, boroughs were also entitled to elect members of parliament. The use of the word borough probably derives from the burghal system of Alfred the Great. Alfred set up a system of defensive strong points ( Burhs); in order to maintain these settlements, he granted them a degree of autonomy. After the Norman Conquest, when certain towns were granted self-governance, the concept of the burh/borough seems to have been reused to mean a self-governing settlement.

The concept of the borough has been used repeatedly (and often differently) throughout the world. Often, a borough is a single town with its own local government. However, in some cities it is a subdivision of the city (for example, New York City, London, and Montreal). In such cases, the borough will normally have either limited powers delegated to it by the city's local government, or no powers at all. In other places, such as the U.S. state of Alaska, borough designates a whole region; Alaska's largest borough, the North Slope Borough, is comparable in area to the entire United Kingdom, although its population is less than that of Swanage on England's south coast with around 9,600 inhabitants. In Australia, a borough was once a self-governing small town, but this designation has all but vanished, except for the only remaining borough in the country, which is the Borough of Queenscliffe.

Boroughs as administrative units are to be found in Ireland and the United Kingdom, more specifically in England and Northern Ireland. Boroughs also exist in the Canadian province of Quebec and formerly in Ontario, in some states of the United States, in Israel, formerly in New Zealand and only one left in Australia.

In the U.S. commonwealth of Pennsylvania, a borough (or a boro) is a self-governing municipal entity, best thought of as a town usually smaller than a city, but with a similar population density in its residential areas. Boros also tend to have more developed business districts and concentrations of public and commercial office buildings, including court houses. Both are larger, less spacious, more developed than the relatively rural townships—which often have the greater territory and even surround boros of a related or even the same name. There are 958 boroughs in Pennsylvania, but only one town. The alternative spelling "boro" is sometimes used, including official notation.

All municipalities in Pennsylvania are classified as either cities, boroughs, or townships. The only exception is the town of Bloomsburg, which is recognized by state government as the only incorporated town in Pennsylvania, and uses the distinction in its promotion. Many home rule municipalities remain classified as boroughs or townships for certain purposes even if the state's Borough and Township Codes no longer apply to them.

New York City, in the U.S. state of New York, is composed of five boroughs. They are Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. Each borough also has coextensive boundaries as a county of New York State. The county governments were dissolved when New York City consolidated in 1898, along with all city, town, and village governments within each county. If the boroughs were each independent cities, four of the boroughs (Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx) would be among the ten most populous cities in the United States; these same boroughs are coextensive with the four most densely populated counties in the United States (New York [Manhattan], Kings [Brooklyn], Bronx, and Queens).

The term borough was adopted to describe a unique form of governmental administration for each of the five fundamental constituent parts of the newly consolidated city in 1898. Under New York State Law, a "borough" is a municipal corporation that is created when a county is merged with populated areas within it. This differs significantly from typical borough forms of government used in Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, other states, Greater London, and elsewhere.

In the US state of Connecticut, a borough is an incorporated section of a town. Borough governments are not autonomous and are subordinate to the government of the town to which they belong. For example, Willimantic is a borough in Windham. A borough is a clearly defined municipality and provides some municipal services, such as police and fire services, garbage collection, street lighting and maintenance, management of cemeteries, and building code enforcement. Other municipal services not provided by the borough are provided by the parent town. Connecticut boroughs are administratively similar to villages in New York.