Special district (United States) in the context of "Westchase, Houston, Texas"

A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.

The term municipality may also mean the governing body of a given municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district.

In the United States, politics functions within a framework of a constitutional federal democratic republic with a presidential system. The three distinct branches share powers: Congress, which forms the legislative branch, a bicameral legislative body comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate; the executive branch, which is headed by the president of the United States, who serves as the country's head of state and government; and the judicial branch, composed of the Supreme Court and lower federal courts, and which exercises judicial power.

Each of the 50 individual state governments has the power to make laws within its jurisdiction that are not granted to the federal government nor denied to the states in the U.S. Constitution. Each state also has a constitution following the pattern of the federal constitution but differing in details. Each has three branches: an executive branch headed by a governor, a legislative body, and a judicial branch. At the local level, governments are found in counties or county-equivalents, and beneath them individual municipalities, county, townships, school districts, and special districts.

Most U.S. states and territories have at least two tiers of local government: counties and municipalities. Louisiana uses the term parish and Alaska uses the term borough for what the U.S. Census Bureau terms county equivalents in those states. Civil townships or towns are used as subdivisions of a county in 20 states, mostly in the Northeast and Midwest.

Population centers may be organized into incorporated municipalities of several types, including the city, town, borough, and village. The types and nature of these municipal entities are defined by state law, and vary from state to state. In addition to these general-purpose local governments, states may also create special-purpose local governments. Depending on the state, local governments may operate under their own charters or under general law, or a state may have a mix of chartered and general-law local governments. Generally, in a state having both chartered and general-law local governments, the chartered local governments have more local autonomy and home rule. Municipalities are typically subordinate to a county government, with some exceptions. Certain cities, for example, have consolidated with their county government as consolidated city-counties. In Virginia, cities are completely independent from the county in which they would otherwise be a part. In some states, particularly in New England, towns form the primary unit of local government below the state level, in some cases eliminating the need for county government entirely. Many rural areas and even some suburban areas of many states have no municipal government below the county level.

The Woodlands is a Special-purpose district and Census-designated place (CDP) in the U.S. state of Texas in the Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land metropolitan statistical area. The Woodlands is primarily located in Montgomery County, with portions extending into Harris County. The Woodlands is governed by The Woodlands Township, an organization that provides municipal services and is administered by an elected board of directors. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the township had a population of 114,436 people.

In 2021, the Howard Hughes Corporation estimated the population of The Woodlands was 119,000. The United States Census Bureau defines an urban area separate from the Houston urban area with The Woodlands as a principal city: The Woodlands–Conroe, TX urban area had a 2020 population of 402,454, making it the 103rd largest in the United States.