Unincorporated area
An unincorporated community is one general term for a geographic area having a common social identity without municipal organization or official political designation (i.e., incorporation as a city or town). There are two main types of unincorporated communities:Due to differences in state laws regarding the incorporation of communities, there is a great variation in the distribution and nature of unincorporated areas. Unincorporated regions are essentially nonexistent in seven of the northeastern states. All of the land in New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island, and nearly all of the land in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Vermont, is part of an incorporated area of some type. In these areas, types (and official names) of local government entities can vary. In New England (which includes five of those eight states, plus the less fully incorporated state of Maine), local municipalities are known as towns or cities, and most towns are administered by a form of direct democracy, such as the open town meeting or representative town meeting. Larger towns in New England may be incorporated as cities, with some form of mayor-council government. In New Jersey multiple types exist as well, such as city, township, town, borough, or village, but these differences are in the structure of the legislative branches, not in the powers or functions of the entities themselves.
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.