The term township, in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, is generally the district or area associated with a town. The specific use of the term to describe political subdivisions has varied by country, usually to describe a local rural or semirural government within the country itself. In Eastern Canada, a township is one form of the subdivision of a

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

. In Quebec, the term is ''canton'' in French.

Maritimes

The historic colony of

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, located on its east coast. It is one of the three Maritime Canada, Maritime provinces and Population of Canada by province and territory, most populous province in Atlan ...

(present-day Nova Scotia,

New Brunswick New Brunswick is a Provinces and Territories of Canada, province of Canada, bordering Quebec to the north, Nova Scotia to the east, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the northeast, the Bay of Fundy to the southeast, and the U.S. state of Maine to ...

, and

Prince Edward Island Prince Edward Island is an island Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. While it is the smallest province by land area and population, it is the most densely populated. The island has several nicknames: "Garden of the Gulf", ...

) used the term ''township'' as a subdivision of counties and as a means of attracting settlers to the colony. In Prince Edward Island, the colonial survey of 1764 established 67 townships, known as lots, and 3 royalties, which were grouped into parishes and hence into counties; the townships were geographically and politically the same. In New Brunswick, parishes have taken over as the present-day subdivision of counties, and present-day Nova Scotia uses districts as appropriate.

Ontario

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, there are both geographic townships and township municipalities. Geographic townships are the original historical administrative subdivisions surveyed and established primarily in the 1800s. They are used primarily for geographic purposes, such as land surveying, natural resource exploration and tracking of phenomena such as

forest fire A wildfire, forest fire, or a bushfire is an unplanned and uncontrolled fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identified as a bushfire ( in Australia), dese ...

s or

tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with the surface of Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, although the ...

s, but are not political entities. Township municipalities, also called "political townships", are areas that have been incorporated with municipal governments, and are a lower-tier municipality (if located in a county or

regional municipality A regional municipality (or region) is a type of Canadian municipal government similar to and at the same municipal government level as a county, although the specific structure and servicing responsibilities may vary from place to place. R ...

, i.e. in Southern Ontario) or single-tier municipality (if located in a district, i.e. in

Northern Ontario Northern Ontario is a primary geographic and quasi-administrative region of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario, the other primary region being Southern Ontario. Most of the core geographic region is located on p ...

). A township municipality may consist of a portion of one or more geographic townships united as a single entity with a single municipal administration. Often rural counties are subdivided into townships. In some places, usually if the township is in a county rather than in a

, the head of a political township may be called a " reeve", not a mayor. However, the distinction is changing as many rural townships are replacing the title with "mayor" to reduce confusion. A few townships keep both titles and designate "mayor" as the head of the municipal council and use "reeve" to denote the representative to the upper tier (usually county) council. The term "geographic township" is also used in reference to former political townships that were abolished or superseded as part of municipal government restructuring.

Quebec

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

, townships are called ''cantons'' in French and can also be political and geographic, similar to Ontario although the geographic use is not used much or at all. They were introduced after the British Conquest, primarily as a

surveying Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the land, terrestrial Plane (mathematics), two-dimensional or Three-dimensional space#In Euclidean geometry, three-dimensional positions of Point (geom ...

unit. They were designated and cover most of the unattributed territory in Eastern Quebec and what is now known as the Eastern Townships and later used in surveying the Outaouais and Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean regions. Townships often served as the territorial basis for new municipalities, but township municipalities are no different from other types such as parish or village municipalities.

Prairies and BC

In the Prairie Provinces and parts of

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

, a township is a division of the

Dominion Land Survey The Dominion Land Survey (DLS; ) is the method used to divide most of Western Canada into one-square-mile (2.6 km2) sections for agricultural and other purposes. It is based on the layout of the Public Land Survey System used in the United St ...

. Townships are (mostly) squares, about in area. The townships are not political units (although political boundaries often follow township boundaries) but exist only to define parcels of land relatively simply. Townships are divided into 36 equal square parcels, known as "sections." In

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...

, a political unit called a

rural municipality A rural municipality is a classification of municipality, a type of local government, found in several countries. These include: * Rural municipality (Canada), Rural municipalities in Canada, a Lists of municipalities in Canada, type of municipa ...

in general is 3 townships by 3 townships in size, or 18 miles squared, about . Three municipalities in

, Langley, Esquimalt and Spallumcheen, have "township" in their official names but legally hold the status of district municipalities.

References

{{Reflist Subdivisions of Canada Statistics Canada Canada 3 Townships, Canada

Maritimes

Ontario

Quebec

Prairies and BC

See also

References