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The Municipalities of Colombia are decentralized subdivisions of the Republic of Colombia. Municipalities make up most of the departments of Colombia with 1,122 municipalities ( municipios ). Each one of them is led by a mayor ( alcalde ) elected by popular vote and represents the maximum executive government official at a municipality level under the mandate of the governor of their department which is a representative of all municipalities in the department; municipalities are grouped to form departments. The municipalities of Colombia are also grouped in an association called the Federación Colombiana de Municipios (Colombian Federation of Municipalities), which functions as a union under the private law and under the constitutional right to free association to defend their common interests.

Conforming to the law 1551/12 that modified the sixth article of the law 136/94 the municipalities have the categories listed below: Category Population more than Revenues ICLD (in monthly minimum wages) Especial category: 500,001 inhabitants 400,000 and over First category: 100,001 - 500,000 100,000 - 400,000 Second category: 50,001 - 100,000 50,000 - 100,000 Third category: 30,001 - 50,000 30,000 - 50,000 Fourth category: 20,001 - 30,000 25,000 - 30,000 Fifth category: 10,001 - 20,000 15,000 - 25,000 Sixth category: 10,000 15,000

The Department of Amazonas is formed by 2 municipalities which are Leticia and Puerto Nariño; and by "department corregimientos" which is a special combined functions between a presidential power and a corregimiento. The reason for this classification is that the large territory is mostly inhospitable, inhabited only by indigenous peoples and within the Amazon rainforest. Municipalities Leticia Puerto Nariño

Bogotá is divided into localities ( localidades ):

Albania Barrancas Dibulla Distracción El Molino Fonseca Hatonuevo La Jagua del Pilar Maicao Manaure Riohacha San Juan del Cesar Uribia Urumita Villanueva

Barranco Minas Cacahual Inirida La Guadalupe Morichal Nuevo Pana Pana Puerto Colombia San Felipe

Calamar El Retorno Miraflores San José del Guaviare

Armenia Buenavista Calarcá Circasia Córdoba Filandia Génova La Tebaida Montenegro Pijao Quimbaya Salento

Apía Balboa Belén de Umbría Dosquebradas Guática La Celia La Virginia Marsella Mistrató Pereira Pueblo Rico Quinchía Santa Rosa de Cabal Santuario

Providencia and Santa Catalina Islands San Andrés

Municipalities Caruru Mitú Taraira Department Corregimientos Pacoa Papunahua Yavarate Municipal Corregimientos Acaricuara Villa Fátima

Cumaribo (including the former department corregimientos of San José de Ocune and Santa Rita) La Primavera Puerto Carreño Santa Rosalía

1954 Special District of Bogotá 1991: Capital District of Bogotá, Industrial and Portuarial District of Barranquilla, Historical, Cultural and Touristic District of Santa Marta and Cultural and Touristic District of Cartagena 2007: Historical and Cultural District of Tunja, Special Industrial, Portuarial, Biodiverse and Ecotouristic, District of Buenaventura, Special, Ecotouristic, Historical and Universitarian District of Popayán, Special Portuarial District of Turbo, Special Border and Touristic District of Cúcuta, Special Industrial, Portuarial, Biodiverse and Ecotouristic, District of Tumaco

In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are currently 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory and shares its sovereignty with the federal government. Due to this shared sovereignty, Americans are citizens both of the federal republic and of the state in which they reside. State citizenship and residency are flexible, and no government approval is required to move between states, except for persons restricted by certain types of court orders (such as paroled convicts and children of divorced spouses who are sharing custody). State governments are allocated power by the people (of each respective state) through their individual constitutions. All are grounded in republican principles, and each provides for a government, consisting of three branches, each with separate and independent powers: executive, legislative, and judicial. States are divided into c...

The 50 U.S. states, in alphabetical order, along with each state's flag:

The 13 original states came into existence in July 1776 during the American Revolutionary War, as the successors of the Thirteen Colonies, upon agreeing to the Lee Resolution and signing the United States Declaration of Independence. Prior to these events each state had been a British colony; each then joined the first Union of states between 1777 and 1781, upon ratifying the Articles of Confederation, the first U.S. constitution. Also during this period, the newly independent states developed their own individual state constitutions, among the earliest written constitutions in the world. Although different in detail, these state constitutions shared features that would be important in the American constitutional order: they were republican in form, and separated power among three branches, most had bicameral legislatures, and contained statements of, or a bill of rights. Later, from 1787 to 1790, each of the states also ratified a new federal frame of government in the Constitution o...

Political divisions of the United States First level State (Commonwealth) Federal district Territory (Commonwealth) Indian reservation (list) / Hawaiian home land / Alaska Native tribal entity / Pueblo / Off-reservation trust land / Tribal Jurisdictional Area Second level County / Parish / Borough Unorganized Borough / Census area / Villages / District (USVI) / District (AS) Consolidated city-county Independent city Municipality Unorganized atoll State-recognized tribes Third level Township Cities, towns, and villages Coterminous municipality Census-designated place Barrio Chapter Fourth level Ward Other areas Protected areas (Conservation district, National monument, National park) Congressional district Homeowner association Associated state Military base Federal enclave Unincorporated area Ghost town v t e States are not mere administrative divisions of the United States, as their powers and responsibilities are not assigned to them f...

Among states Each state admitted to the Union by Congress since 1789 has entered it on an equal footing with the original states in all respects. With the growth of states' rights advocacy during the antebellum period, the Supreme Court asserted, in Lessee of Pollard v. Hagan (1845), that the Constitution mandated admission of new states on the basis of equality. With the consent of Congress, states may enter into interstate compacts, agreements between two or more states. Compacts are frequently used to manage a shared resource, such as transportation infrastructure or water rights. Under Article IV of the Constitution, which outlines the relationship between the states, each state is required to give full faith and credit to the acts of each other's legislatures and courts, which is generally held to include the recognition of most contracts and criminal judgments, and before 1865, slavery status. Under the Extradition Clause, a state must extradite people located there who...

Article IV also grants to Congress the authority to admit new states into the Union. Since the establishment of the United States in 1776, the number of states has expanded from the original 13 to 50. Each new state has been admitted on an equal footing with the existing states. Article IV also forbids the creation of new states from parts of existing states without the consent of both the affected states and Congress. This caveat was designed to give Eastern states that still had Western land claims (including Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia), to have a veto over whether their western counties could become states, and has served this same function since, whenever a proposal to partition an existing state or states in order that a region within might either join another state or to create a new state has come before Congress. Most of the states admitted to the Union after the original 13 were formed from an organized territory established and governed by Congress in accord with i...

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico, an unincorporated U.S. territory, refers to itself as the "Commonwealth of Puerto Rico" in the English version of its constitution, and as "Estado Libre Asociado" (literally, Associated Free State) in the Spanish version. As with all U.S. territories, its residents do not have full representation in the United States Congress. Puerto Rico has limited representation in the U.S. House of Representatives in the form of a Resident Commissioner, a delegate with limited voting rights in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union, but no voting rights otherwise. A non-binding referendum on statehood, independence, or a new option for an associated territory (different from the current status) was held on November 6, 2012. Sixty one percent (61%) of voters chose the statehood option, while one third of the ballots were submitted blank. On December 11, 2012, the Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico enacted a concurrent resolution reque...

The Constitution is silent on the issue of whether a state can secede from the Union. Its predecessor, the Articles of Confederation, stated that the United States "shall be perpetual." The question of whether or not individual states held the unilateral right to secession was a passionately debated feature of the nations's political discourse from early in its history, and remained a difficult and divisive topic until the American Civil War. In 1860 and 1861, 11 southern states each declared secession from the United States, and joined together to form the Confederate States of America (CSA). Following the defeat of Confederate forces by Union armies in 1865, those states were brought back into the Union during the ensuing Reconstruction Era. The federal government never recognized the sovereignty of the CSA, nor the validity of the ordinances of secession adopted by the seceding states. Following the war, the United States Supreme Court, in Texas v. White (1869), held ...

The 50 states have taken their names from a wide variety of languages. Twenty-four state names originate from Native American languages. Of these, eight are from Algonquian languages, seven are from Siouan languages, three are from Iroquoian languages, one is from Uto-Aztecan languages and five others are from other indigenous languages. Hawaii's name is derived from the Polynesian Hawaiian language. Of the remaining names, 22 are from European languages: Seven from Latin (mainly Latinized forms of English names), the rest are from English, Spanish and French. Eleven states are named after individual people, including seven named for royalty and one named after a President of the United States. The origins of six state names are unknown or disputed. Several of the states that derive their names from (corrupted) names used for Native peoples, have retained the plural ending of "s".

Borders The borders of the 13 original states were largely determined by colonial charters. Their western boundaries were subsequently modified as the states ceded their western land claims to the Federal government during the 1780s and 1790s. Many state borders beyond those of the original 13 were set by Congress as it created territories, divided them, and over time, created states within them. Territorial and new state lines often followed various geographic features (such as rivers or mountain range peaks), and were influenced by settlement or transportation patterns. At various times, national borders with territories formerly controlled by other countries (British North America, New France, New Spain including Spanish Florida, and Russian America) became institutionalized as the borders of U.S. states. In the West, relatively arbitrary straight lines following latitude and longitude often prevail, due to the sparseness of settlement west of the Mississippi River. Once established...