Communes_of_Chile

Communes of Chile

Communes of Chile

Smallest administrative subdivision in Chile

For other uses, see Commune (disambiguation).

A commune (Spanish: comuna, IPA: [koˈmuna]) is the smallest administrative subdivision in Chile. It may contain cities, towns, villages, hamlets as well as rural areas. In highly populated areas, such as Santiago, Valparaíso and Concepción, a conurbation may be broken into several communes. In sparsely populated areas, conversely, a commune may cover a substantial rural area together with several settled areas which could range from hamlets to towns or cities.

The term "commune" is ambiguous in English, but the word is commonly used in translation for "comuna", although with some controversy among translators. A comuna is similar to a "county" in Anglo-American usage and practice, and may be more universally understood as a "municipality".

Each commune or municipality is governed by a directly elected body known as a municipal council (concejo municipal) consisting of a mayor (alcalde) and a group of councillors (concejales), for a period of four years. The communal civil service administration is known as the municipality (municipalidad) and is headquartered at the mayor's office (alcaldía). According to Chilean law, a single municipality may administer one or more communes, though currently, the only such case is the municipality of Cabo de Hornos, which administers the communes of Antártica and Cabo de Hornos.[1]

Chile's 346 communes are grouped into 56 provinces (provincia, pl. provincias), which are themselves grouped into 16 regions (región, pl. regiones).

List of communes by region and province

Traditionally, Chilean regions are listed in geographical order starting with the northernmost region, leaving the Santiago Metropolitan Region at the end. The following table lists all Chilean communes, providing a complete list of administrative divisions at all levels. Each commune's municipality website is given along with the area and population from the National Statistics Institute's most recent census conducted in 2002.

More information INERegion, NaturalRegion ...

See also

References

  1. [1]
    Law 19,726
  2. [2]
    "National Statistics Institute" (in Spanish). Retrieved 30 December 2010.
  3. [3]
    "Territorial division of Chile" (PDF) (in Spanish). Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 November 2010. Retrieved 30 December 2010.
  4. [4]
    "Comunas: Actualización Población 2002-2012 y Proyecciones 2013-2020". National Statistics Institute (in Spanish). Retrieved 20 April 2015.
  5. [5]
    "Asociacion Chilena de Municipalidades". Archived from the original on 19 April 2011. Retrieved 7 February 2011.
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