Township

The term township generally means the district or area associated with a town. However in some systems no town need be involved. Specific use of the term to describe political subdivisions has varied by country, usually to describe a local rural or semi-rural government within a county.

In eastern Canada a township is one form of the subdivision of a county. This is translated into French as canton in Quebec.
In western Canada townships exist only for the purpose of land division by the Dominion Land Survey and are not administrative units.
In England the township has been long obsolete, but was a subdivision used to administer a large parish.
In South Africa under Apartheid, a township was a residential development which confined Africans who lived near or worked in white-only communities. Soweto is the most well-known of these.
In the United States, there are two kinds of township in common use. A survey township is a unit of land measure defined by the Public Land Survey System. A civil township is a widely-used unit of local government. The former are always numbered; the latter are usually given names. A state may have neither, only one, or both of these.