Editing Town (section)

=== Austria ===
{{see also|List of cities and towns in Austria}}

The Austrian legal system does not distinguish between villages, towns, and cities. The country is partitioned into 2098 municipalities ({{langx|de|Gemeinden}}) of fundamentally equal rank. Larger municipalities are designated as market towns ({{langx|de|Marktgemeinden}}) or cities ({{lang|de|Städte}}), but these distinctions are purely symbolic and do not confer additional legal responsibilities. There is a number of smaller communities that are labelled cities because they used to be regional population centers in the distant past. The city of [[Rattenberg]] for example has about 400 inhabitants. The city of [[Hardegg]] has about 1200 inhabitants.

There are no unincorporated areas.

Of the 201 cities in Austria, 15 are [[statutory city (Austria)|statutory cities]] ({{lang|de|Statutarstädte}}). A statutory city is a city that is vested, in addition to its purview as a municipality, with the duties of a [[district (Austria)|district administrative authority]]. The status does not come with any additional autonomy: district administrative authorities are essentially just service centers that citizens use to interact with the national government, for example to apply for driver licenses or passports. The national government generally uses the provinces to run these points of contact on its behalf; in the case of statutory cities, the municipality gets to step up.