Township

Township, or VILL, the oldest proprietary and political unit of the Germanic races, an organised self-acting group of families exercising ownership over a definite area, the mark. The oldest English manors are conterminous with townships: the parish, a later division than the township, and originally purely ecclesiastical, is assumed to be equivalent to the township if there is no evidence to the contrary. In fact many parishes, especially in the north of England, consist, actually of but one township; but generally they comprise more than one, and are subdivided into townships, hamlets, 'tithings,' 'boroughs,' or the like, none of which subdivisions, unlike the parish itself, has ever had a church or a constable of its own. For administrative purposes the township is subordinate to the Parish (q.v.).—In the United States the word is variously used (1) of a subdivision of a county; (2) the corporation composed of the inhabitants of such area; or sometimes (3) of municipal corporations only less fully organised and with fewer powers than a city.