Urban districts were a form of local government in England and Wales between 1894 and 1974, typically used for smaller and medium sized towns. They were created on 31 December 1894 under the Local Government Act 1894 (56 & 57 Vict. c. 73). The vast majority of urban districts formed at that time were created by renaming the pre-existing urban sanitary districts, such as local board districts or improvement commissioners districts. Only a minority of the urban districts created in 1894 were for places that had not previously had urban forms of local government.

Other, usually larger, towns and cities were governed as municipal boroughs.
Note for table: 'UD' stands for Urban District, 'RD' stands for Rural District, 'MB' stands for Municipal Borough, 'Met. B' stands for Metropolitan Borough and 'CB' stands for County Borough.

Initially 753 urban districts were created under the Local Government Act 1894 (56 & 57 Vict. c. 73). Of these, 692 had previously been local board districts or local government districts, and 30 had been improvement commissioners districts.^{[1][lower-alpha 1][2]} When the 1894 Act came into force on 31 December 1894 an additional 31 urban districts were created for areas which had not previously been urban sanitary districts, whilst four urban sanitary districts were abolished at the same time (two absorbed into larger urban neighbours, two downgraded to rural areas) and so did not become urban districts.^{[3][lower-alpha 2]}

There were 13 urban districts formed in 1895, however 10 districts were abolished meaning there was only a net increase of three to 756.