A city charter or town charter is a legal document establishing a A municipality or general-purpose district (compare with: special-purpose district) is an administrative local area generally composed of a clearly defined territory and commonly referring to a city, town, or village government. ...municipality. In the The United States of America — also referred to as the United States, the U.S.A., the U.S., America¹, the States, or (archaically) Columbia — is a federal republic of 50 states located primarily in central North America (with the exception of two states: Alaska and Hawaii). ...United States, such charters are established either directly by a State legislatures are the lawmaking bodies of the 50 states in the United States of America. ...state legislature by means of Special legislation (also called local legislation) is a legal term of art used in the United States which refers to acts of a state legislature which apply only to a specific municipality (or a group thereof) which is identified by name in the legislation. ...special legislation, or indirectly under a general A Municipal Corporation is a legal defintion for a local governing body, including (but not necessarily limited to) cities, counties, and towns. ...municipal corporation law, usually after the proposed charter has passed a A referendum (plural: referendums or referenda) or plebiscite is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. ...referendum vote of the affected population. In the The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a country in western Europe, and a member of the British Commonwealth and European Union. ...United Kingdom, towns and cities are established by In the United Kingdom and Canada a Royal Charter is a charter granted by the Sovereign on the advice of the Privy Council, which creates or gives special status to an incorporated body. ...royal charter; see Historically, city status was associated with the presence of a cathedral, such as York Minster. ...City status in the United Kingdom.
Apart from being of a certain size, there were several requirements that a town needed to fulfil to be granted citycharter, although the criteria tended to vary throughout the centuries, and were often at the discretion of the Riksdag or the monarch.
Exceptions would be when a city was founded under Royal supervision, in which case the city would often bear the name of the monarch, such as Kristianstad or Karlskrona (named after kings Christian IV of Denmark and Karl IX of Sweden).
The cities with a population exceeding 15,000 in the year 1900 were: Stockholm (300,624), Gothenburg (130,609), Malmö (60,857), Norrköping (41,008), Gävle (29,522).
Feeds |
Contact