Unincorporated area
In law, an unincorporated area is a region of land that is not governed by a local municipal corporation; similarly an unincorporated community is a settlement that is not governed by its own local municipal corporation, but rather is administered as part of larger administrative divisions, such as a township, parish, borough, county, city, canton, state, province or country. Occasionally, municipalities dissolve or disincorporate, which may happen if they become fiscally insolvent, and services become the responsibility of a higher administration. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. In most other countries of the world, there are either no unincorporated areas at all, or these are very rare; typically remote, outlying, sparsely populated or uninhabited areas.
Administrative divisions of Wisconsin
There are numerous examples of unincorporated communities throughout the state. These areas are administered by the town or municipality in which they exist. They serve as useful local reference to specific places and are sometimes included in vital records. Many of these named places contain a small cluster of houses, a church or local business such as store or tavern. Although they do not have any governmental function, most are recognized for the common usage and are marked with official green informational highway signs listing the place name with the word 'Unincorporated' underneath. Many of these named places are also placed on the official Wisconsin state highway maps issued by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation but these names were not listed in the index on the same maps until several years ago. Examples include Frog Station, Poland, and North Leeds.