County Borough

County Borough (literally " County Borough " ) is a term in local government of the English-speaking world, especially the United Kingdom. These are administrative districts in urban areas, which do not belong to a county ( " County " ), so on one level with the County are, ie all tasks, which takes over the county, do their own responsibility. They are therefore called sometimes county -level cities and can compare them with independent cities in Germany.

County boroughs originated in the United Kingdom 1889. Until 1968 new County Boroughs yet been built (about 1968 Teesside ). They all passed until the reorganization of local government in 1974. At that time they were reintegrated the counties and explains to Districts or parts of Districts ( " two-stage management ").

In England in the reorganization of local government in the 1990s for many populous districts known as unitary authorities created, similar to the former County Boroughs in their function, as well as the unitary authorities belong to any County, that is, they perform the tasks of counties and the District ( " stage management "). The term County Borough was no longer used. It is the same in Scotland. In Wales, however, some carrying the existing unitary authorities since 1996 ( again ) the name of the county borough.

In Ireland there is still County Boroughs. These are the urban areas of Cork, Dublin, Galway ( County borough was only in 1986 to explain ), Limerick and Waterford.