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An incorporated town is a town that is a municipal corporation.

Contents 1 Canada 2 United States 2.1 California 2.2 Illinois 2.3 Nevada 3 See also 4 References

Incorporated towns are a form of local government in Canada, which is a responsibility of provincial rather than federal government.

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An incorporated town in the United States is an incorporated municipality, that is, one with a charter received from the state, similar to a city. An incorporated town will have elected officials, as differentiated from an unincorporated community, which exists only by tradition and does not have elected officials at the town level. In some states, especially in midwestern and western states, civil townships may sometimes be called towns, but are generally not incorporated municipalities, but are administrative subdivisions and derive their authority from statute rather than from a charter.

Under California's Government Code Sections 34500-34504, the terms "city" and "town" are explicitly interchangeable, i.e. there is no legal distinction between an incorporated city and an incorporated town. California has 22 incorporated municipalities that are styled "Town of (Name)" instead of "City of (Name)".

In Illinois, an incorporated town is one of three types of municipalities. An incorporated town is a municipality that was incorporated by a special act of the Illinois General Assembly prior to the creation of the Illinois Municipal Code. Illinois' standard law on municipalities came into effect on July 1, 1872 and does not provide for the incorporation of municipal towns. Since the Municipal Code provides a standard way for citizens to incorporate a new city or village, incorporated towns are far less common than City and village municipalities in Illinois.

Well-known examples of incorporated towns include the Town of Cicero and the Town of Normal. Although civil townships and incorporated towns are sometimes both called towns, they are completely separate types of government in Illinois -- unlike incorporated towns, townships are subdivisions of a county and are not municipalities.

The oldest existing municipal town in Illinois is Fulton County's Astoria, incorporated January 24, 1839; the newest existing is Adams County's La Prairie, incorporated on April 15, 1869.^[1]

There are 19 incorporated towns in Illinois, none of which are county seats^[1]:

Existing Incorported Towns in Illinois

Town	County	Incorporated
Annawan	Henry	1869-03-31
Astoria	Fulton	1839-01-24
Atkinson	Henry	1867-03-07
Belle Prairie City	Hamilton	1869-03-30
Bently	Hancock	1869-03-25
Chatsworth	Livingston	1867-03-08
Cicero	Cook	1867-02-28
Cortland	DeKalb	1865-02-16
Dakota	Stephenson	1869-03-11
La Prairie	Adams	1869-04-15
Mason	Effingham	1865-02-15
Naples	Scott	1839-02-01
New Canton	Pike	1869-03-31
Nilwood	Macoupin	1867-03-09
Normal	McLean	1867-02-25
Otterville	Jersey	1867-03-07
Palestine	Crawford	1855-02-15
Sigel	Shelby	1867-03-07
Topeka	Mason	1869-04-10

Despite its name, Belle Prairie City, Illinois is an incorporated town, not a city.

In Nevada, incorporated towns are called cities.

• Urban township