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.
Independent city
Another similar entity is a consolidated city-county. An independent city is not even nominally part of any county, whereas for a consolidated city and county, the county at least nominally exists. In some cases, such as Indianapolis, Indiana, the largest city in a county is consolidated with the county government while smaller communities continue to operate within the same county but separately from Indianapolis. In other cases, such as The City and County of Honolulu, Hawaii and The City and County of San Francisco, California, there is a complete consolidation of municipality and county. San Francisco, for example, has a chief executive called "Mayor", a term normally associated with city government, but the legislative body is called "Board of Supervisors", which is otherwise associated with county government in California.