Talk:List of municipalities in Nova Scotia

Duplicated municipalities?

In this list there are 3 municipalities called Digby:

• Digby County
• The town of Digby
• Municipal District of Digby

The municipal directory includes only two of the Digbys, the Town and the Municipal district. A google search for Digby County leads to Municipal district of Digby's offical website. Can anyone clarify? The The Canada Revenue Agency also agrees with the existence of only 2 Digbys. Mattximus (talk) 17:32, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Mattximus, actually, there are only two municipalities named Digby – the Town of Digby and the Municipality of the District of Digby – that are both within the historical County of Digby, which is not a municipality whatsoever. See the new discussion about this article that I am about to start below. Hwy43 (talk) 21:57, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

County municipalities vs. historical counties

With some research today, I think I finally understand the county situation in Nova Scotia. There are 18 historical counties. Three of these are now regional municipalities (see three notes on PDF page 13, aka page 12 of 151, of this 2014 annual report). Of the remaining 15 historical counties, only 9 of them are county municipalities (see second column on the same page). These are Annapolis, Antigonish, Colchester, Cumberland, Inverness, Kings, Pictou, Richmond and Victoria. Therefore the historical counties of Digby, Guysborough, Hants, Lunenburg, Shelburne and Yarmouth are not county municipalities. Only nine of the historical counties being county municipalities is validated by the UNSM's member directory, which lists the nine above.

So, before the four most recent town dissolutions, there were 55 municipalities in Nova Scotia – 3 regional municipalities, 21 rural municipalities, and 31 towns (now 27 towns). So what are "rural municipalities"? Well, we now know there is 9 county municipalities. We also know there are 12 district municipalities. This is validated by both the UNSM's member directory and page 12 of 151 of the 2014 annual report published by Nova Scotia's Department of Municipal Affairs (again, refer to second column).

After reviewing all of this, it is unambiguous that there are currently 51 municipalities in Nova Scotia – 3 regional municipalities, 21 rural municipalities (comprising 9 county municipalities and 12 district municipalities) and 27 towns. The structure and prose of this list article needs to be updated accordingly before any FL nomination. Hwy43 (talk) 22:19, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

I was confused about these municipalities as well, so I opted to nominate New Brunswick first. Thanks for the clarification, you've given me enough information, I'm on it. It will take a few days to fix the prose and tables. Again, your maps look great. Mattximus (talk) 22:58, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

All nine county municipality populations, land areas, etc. need to be reduced by deducting the amounts from the independent town municipalities they surround. Would you be willing to undertake with addition of corresponding notes for each nine explaining which towns have been removed from their numbers? Hwy43 (talk) 00:34, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Yep I can do this, I've gotten into the habit of adding those notes whenever the numbers deviate from the stats can reference anyway. You've made some excellent changes to the prose, so my next project will be to fix the tables to match your direction above. Mattximus (talk) 04:23, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Hwy43. I've completed all the changes to the tables, was this what you were thinking? I'll add more info to the subheadings soon. Mattximus (talk) 23:00, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

I'll try to review and advise tomorrow after I get through my first day back at work. Thanks for all your help! Hwy43 (talk) 01:17, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Are villages incorporated?

I noticed several references on wikipedia to incorporated villages of Nova Scotia, see St. Peter's, Nova Scotia, or even Template:Subdivisions of Nova Scotia. I'm wondering if these are all actually incorporated and governed independently of the incorporated county that they are found? Thanks. Mattximus (talk) 22:59, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

I've observed the same before. They are not municipalities. They are sub-units of a municipality with some sort of organized representation however. Possibly like the organized hamlet concept in Saskatchewan. I'll review and advise, but note my activity on Wikipedia is about to slow down with the holiday season over and going back to work. Thus you may beat me to it. Hwy43 (talk) 01:15, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Mattximus, in responding to the below, I came across this which states "The Province of Nova Scotia has 54 municipalities which include and [sic] 21 incorporated villages. These villages are part of the rural municipalities and not considered municipalities themselves."[emphasis added] It is now unambiguous that villages are not municipalities. In this case, them having an "incorporated" status does not mean they are municipalities. Hwy43 (talk) 09:59, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Clarification

It would really be helpful if this was a bit more fleshed out. There is really no explanation given of the difference between county and district municipalities, whether towns are a division of either or both, etc...as of right now the only thing clear to me is that regional municipalities are a single tier of administration, and even that's not explicitly stated in the article. It's not clear whether the other's are single-tier. If I had to guess it appears that all are independent of one another and thus are single-tier. I'd guess that counties are traditional counties, district municipalities are former counties split into smaller manageable areas, and towns are urban or urban-like settlements seperated from counties, but this is all just a guess. --Criticalthinker (talk) 08:41, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

This is one of four provincial/territorial municipalities lists that are on a hit list for elevation to featured list status. None of the research I've uncovered to date suggests that Nova Scotia has a two-tier local government system, similar to say Ontario. Rather, Nova Scotia's system appears to be similar to those of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta (or more likely the other way around given their systems are younger) where there are rural municipalities with voids for urban municipalities that are independent of the rural municipalities. Regarding the 24 rural municipalities covering all of Nova Scotia, according to this source, they "were created on the basis of the existing sessional boundaries of twelve counties and twelve districts in six divided counties... none of these boundaries has been changed to any significant degree, and the original twenty-four rural municipalities remain the basic units of local government outside incorporated towns and cities." [emphasis added] Now that source is dated a tad, as there are now nine counties due to three of the twelve original county municipalities becoming regional municipalities in the not so distant past. There does remain the same twelve district municipalities however. Hwy43 (talk) 09:50, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

This really only answers one of the questions (incorporated towns exist outside/independent of counties and districts), but doesn't answer what the difference between districts and counties are. Is it that counties are not divided and thus the local government exists at the county level, whereas in counties divided into districts the government only exists at the district level sort of like the concept of a metropolitan borough in England? More than this, I'm really just asking for someone with more knowledge if they can clarify this stuff in the article making it more explicitly clear for those of us who don't live there. --Criticalthinker (talk) 06:30, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Okay, after a bit more study, I see what had me (and others) confused, and then I have suggestions for how to make things more clear. The central part of the problem is that it's not explicitly stated that all local government in Nove Scotia is single-tier, that is that despite the difference in name, all local governments are on the same level of administration. Incorporated towns don't exists administratively within either counties or districts, and districts don't exist administratively within counties. To that point, what else needs to be clarified is interchangeably using the "county" to mean "county municipality" and vice versa. Statistically, legally, and/or geographically it does appear counties cover the entirety of the territory of the province. So, in that since as a "county" in the legal/statistical/geographical/historical since certain towns and districts do in fact exists within counties, even when the county level government has either been abolished (as is the case with the districts) or seperated (as is the case with the towns). It's why the pages for towns and districts still read "Such-and-such district/town in such-and-such county" even though they are administratively independent of the former or current county. So, the clarify:

• It needs to be explicitly stated somewhere in the opening of the article that local government in single-tier with no local government being subordinate to any other.
• It would help to somehow differentiate between an administrative county (county municipality) and the historical, statistical and legal counties that may still exist on paper, but have no government.

On that last point, it seems very analogous to the concept of ceremonial county in England, where the districts within these counties have administratively seperated from the county (either as metropolitan boroughs, unitary authorities, what have you) with the county no longer serving administrative purpose, but the county still existing on paper. So, for instance, Argyle District is geographically located in Yarmouth County, but Yarmouth County doesn't exist as a municipal entity its parts having been carved up into district municipalities and towns. --Criticalthinker (talk) 21:22, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

This is taken under advisement. If there is a reliable source out there that explicitly states Nova Scotia's municipal government system is single-tier, we can implement the first suggestion with ease. The problem is, through what I've researched elsewhere in Canada (beyond Ontario), where there is an untiered municipal government system in place, the coverage of that system does not refer to it being a single-tier or untiered system. It is simply just referred to as a municipal government system. In other words, there is no need to explain non-existent tiers when a single system is in place, so rarely is there coverage discussing what the system is not. It is only when an actual tiered system is in place within Canada, like in Ontario, where I have witnessed explicit explanation and extensive coverage of the multiple tiers within the system. The second suggestion can be implemented with ease, especially with the sources found in the research undertaken yesterday. Ideally, the bulk of the detail should land within List of counties of Nova Scotia as the main article on counties in Nova Scotia, with a brief overview summary included here. Hwy43 (talk) 01:00, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Since posting the above, the best I've found so far is something that says which provinces in Canada have two-tiered municipal structures. See the opening sentence of Section 2.1 of this report that states "The Canadian provinces of Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia have two-tier municipality systems." Would it therefore be WP:SYNTH to reference this in support of a statement that Nova Scotia and the six other provinces have a single-tier or untiered municipal government system? This is what we are up against. When there is a single-tier system, the documentation is silent on the fact that it is a single-tier system. Hwy43 (talk) 05:18, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

@Criticalthinker: does this series of edits provide the clarification sought? Hwy43 (talk) 07:49, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

A lot of the changes made to the county municipalities subsection I'd actually put under the district municipalities subsection. County municipalities kind of explain themselves. Everything is probably a bit more wordy than I'd have made it; I'm not sure we need an a whole background on the courts of sessions and such. All I was looking to have clarified was that there is a single tier of government and that district municipalities were former districts of counties elevated to the level of the existing counties. --Criticalthinker (talk) 08:04, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Frankly, I think the level of detail for the content just added, especially regarding the courts of sessions, would be more appropriately placed at List of counties of Nova Scotia, with only a brief summary on county municipalities and district municipalities to remain here. My intent is to expand on the district municipalities section tomorrow. I will add the outstanding content on the one-tier system to the lead right now and return tomorrow to further refine if necessary. Hwy43 (talk) 08:15, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Featured list peer review request

Mattximus, I think this list article is pretty much ready for FL nomination. The only thing left on my list before officially nominating is bolstering notes b–k and m for accuracy, references and potential WP:OVERLINK violations. Another minor issue is that I have not been able to find sources that confirm the original incorporation dates for three municipalities (see note l).

Would you mind peer reviewing this article based on lessons learned for the previous successful provincial/territorial municipality list nominations? I believe I have implemented most from memory, but it has been a while for me. Note, the vision for this article is to match the formats of the previous successful provincial/territorial municipality list nominations. I note that you've been successful in nominating other municipality lists beyond Canada since the last Canadian nomination. I have no doubt they are rock solid, but the implemented vision of those may differ than what we've done previously in Canada, so please try to match with the vision of the other successful provincial/territorial nominations.

Also, if you have the time, perhaps you may have some luck finding reliable sources presenting the official "effective" incorporation dates of the three that are missing. I sent an inquiry to government staff in early December asking if they could point me in the right direction but I've yet to hear back. Hopefully the delay is just the awkward timing of the holiday season. Cheers, Hwy43 (talk) 09:10, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

I went over the text and it looks well composed, I made a few minor tweaks. As for the dates, for Berwick: I think we should ignore the unsourced date from the main page and just use the official town website. There are a good dozen documents that all say 1923, and we know for sure the town was incorporated prior to September, so I'm happy leaving it as July 1923, or even just 1923 instead of blank. As for the district municipalities, in one of the links already cited it states that all 12 district municipalities incorporated at the same time, and that they have not changed their boundaries since then. I think it's safe to use this reference for the missing 2 district municipalities. At least until they get back to you with new information, but I doubt it will change the dates. Mattximus (talk) 18:12, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Could I make a suggestion after seeing the changes? I know it's mention in the next subsection, but to keep things clear, should it probably be mentioned in the county subsection after mentioning that 12 of the 18 got county-level government, that the other 6 historic counties were divided into 12 district municipalities? It just seems to me that there is a really easy way in a sentence or two to say that: 12 of the 18 historic counties became county municipalities, while the 6 others were subdivided into district municipalities. This wouldn't even be inconsistent with how the page is currently written since it's also stated, again, in the county subsection that 3 of the 12 county municipalities became regional municipalities. I'm probably not being as clear as I need to be, but it could probably be deduced or described in a single sentence or maybe even a simple chart. --Criticalthinker (talk) 18:25, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you both for your reviews and comments. We'll need to be prepared to answer the inevitable question about Berwick's inconsistent incorporation date format during the FLC review process. I may add a note tonight. I've readded some content trimmed a few days ago to address the comment regarding the division of the 6 historical counties into districts. Beyond this, I think it is ready for nomination once I complete the outstanding bolstering to notes b–k and m for accuracy. Hwy43 (talk) 19:27, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

While it appeared April 23, 1923 may have been an incorporation date for the Town of Berwick, I alluded to some skepticism in my edit summary as the source was not as explicit as hoped. I dwelled on the keywords "to facilitate" in the title of the act and how it appears in the act there may have been one more hoop to jump through involving a county sheriff to make the incorporation official. I've since found this that states May 25, 1923, which matches the unsourced entry at the Berwick article and further appears to be noted on page 958 of the Canadian Almanac & Directory, 2010 as well. I've cross-referenced the town incorporation dates at the New Scotland source and, excluding Berwick, the author is consistent on 23 of the 25 towns that remain incorporated today. One of the two that was inconsistent was Shelburne, which turns out to be correct when compared to what the Town of Shelburne publishes itself. This leads me to believe, per my edit summary, that the provincial source has a typo where "Town of Shelburne" is actually "District of Shelburne". That typo is supported by Mattximus' observations above about the District of Shelburne and the District of Yarmouth being incorporated on the same date as all the other county municipalities and district municipalities (April 17, 1879). So, in my view, the author is 24 for 25. Further, I cross-referenced the 5 recently dissolved towns at the New Scotland source with the provincial source, and all 5 are accurate, so the author is 29 for 30. Based on this, I am pretty confident May 25, 1923 is the actual official incorporate date of Berwick, not some unknown day in July 1923. Rather, I'm guessing that July may have been when the first election took place (at least five weeks after incorporation). Thoughts? Hwy43 (talk) 07:35, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Also, note the 1 of 30 that remains inconsistent is Digby. The provincial source says December 18, 1890 yet both Digby, Nova Scotia (albeit unsourced) and the New Scotland source stated February 28, 1890. The New Scotland source repeats it here as well, stating "On (February 28, 1890), Digby was incorporated as a town." It refers to the February 28, 2000 edition of the Halifax Daily News being the source. Hwy43 (talk) 08:51, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Wow, nice work digging that reference up. I'm now content with the Berwick one, I did find council meetings from September that year, so that means the election was already held, so July did seem a bit soon for incorporation. The Digby one your guess is as good as mine. One of those two sources made an error and I am not sure which to trust, sorry! Mattximus (talk) 15:57, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Unincorporated

Aside from the statistics, one would assume that the entire province is incorporated, but since 1.1% of the population lives in 0.2% of the land that is not incorporated, this obviously isn't true. Could a little explanation be given somehow? My first thought was the concept of a Gore (surveying) as appears in the northeastern US, but gores are virtually unpopulated (in 2000, Vermont had 22 residents distributed among its four gores), so I suppose this isn't an outworking of the same idea, since the unincorporated places have 5x the population density of the whole province. Nyttend (talk) 03:56, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Oh wait, now I see the comment about Indian reserves. Sorry about missing that before. Nyttend (talk) 03:56, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

<onlyinclude> </onlyinclude> markup

DanTrent and all other editors: The <onlyinclude> </onlyinclude> markup, or some of it, anyway, is necessary for List of communities in Nova Scotia to avoid Table tag that should be deleted lint errors. If you remove such markup from List of municipalities in Nova Scotia, please verify that this does not cause lint errors in List of communities in Nova Scotia. —Anomalocaris (talk) 04:15, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Overloaded title and is this really a list?

It's a little confusing because NS is divided into

• regional municipalities
• towns
• county municipalities, also called district municipalities depending whether they are co-extant with their historical county. These can also be subdivided into villages.

The word "municipalities" is being used with two meanings in the article: a general one (administrative units), and a formal one under NS law, (regional / county municipality). This article could be titled something like Administrative divisions of Nova Scotia. This would be conformant with Administrative divisions of Quebec, Administrative divisions of New York (state), Administrative divisions of Florida, etc. Also, I don't think the format of WP lists is that well defined, but normally I'd expect more of a bare-bones list, where this looks like an article that contains lists. --Cornellier (talk) 12:11, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

I believe this list matches very well with all other list of municipalities in Canada. The three you linked are very different articles from this one, and do not include lists, so it would be the odd one out if it was worded like those you cited. Mattximus (talk) 16:19, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Whether or not it matches "very well with all other list of municipalities" the problem remains that

it's incorrectly titled, since it's not a list

the term "municipality" is used with two different meanings which is unclear at best.

the proposal is to rename this article to Administrative divisions of NS --Cornellier (talk) 17:20, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

At the very least it is certainly a list, as it passed featured list peer review confirming it as such. But also, the ones you compared it to are not lists. So I think at least that point is unambiguous. Mattximus (talk) 23:05, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Cornellier, admittedly I am having a difficult time understanding your logic here. The Government of Nova Scotia explicitly considers its “municipalities” to be inclusive of regional municipalities, towns, county municipalities, and district municipalities (see page 4 here). This is drawn from section 3(aw) of the Municipal Government Act that states “municipality” means a regional municipality, town or county or district municipality. Further this is undoubtedly a list article. If it were not, it would not have attained featured list status in 2017. This list article is appropriately named. Hwy43 (talk) 00:37, 23 July 2021 (UTC)