Pennsylvania has 67 counties. With the exception of Philadelphia and Allegheny, counties are governed by three to seven county commissioners who are elected every four years; the district attorney, county treasurer, sheriff, and certain classes of judge ("judges of election") are also elected separately. Philadelphia has been a consolidated city-county since 1952. Allegheny County has had a council/chief executive government since 2000, while still retaining its townships, boroughs and cities.
Each county is divided into municipal corporations, which can be one of four types: cities, boroughs, townships, and incorporated towns. The Commonwealth does not contain any unincorporated land that is not served by a local government. However, the US Postal Service has given names to places within townships that are not incorporated separately. For instance King of Prussia is acensus-designated place but has no local government of its own. It is rather contained within Upper Merion Township, governed by Upper Merion's commissioners, and considered to be a part of the township.
Townships are divided into two classes, depending on their population size. Townships of the "First Class" have a board made up of five to nine commissioners who are elected either at-large or for a particular ward, while those of the "Second Class" have a board of three to five supervisors who are elected at-large. Both commissioners and supervisors serve a four-year term. Some townships have adopted a home rule charter which allows them to choose their form of government. One example is Upper Darby Township, in Delaware County, which has chosen to have a "mayor-council" system similar to that of a borough.
Boroughs in Pennsylvania are governed by a "mayor-council" system in which the mayor has only a few powers (usually that of overseeing the municipal police department, if the borough has one), while the borough council has very broad appointment and oversight. The council president, who is elected by the majority party every two years, is equivalent to the leader of a council in the United Kingdom; his or her powers operate within boundaries set by the state constitution and the borough's charter. A small minority of the boroughs have dropped the mayor-council system in favor of the council-manager system, in which the council appoints a borough manager to oversee the day-to-day operations of the borough.
Bloomsburg is the Commonwealth's only incorporated town. McCandless is also officially referred to as a town, but it was incorporated as a township and now operates under a Home Rule Municipality Charter.
Cities in Pennsylvania are divided into four classes: Class 1, Class 2, Class 2A, and Class 3. Class 3 cities, which are the smallest, have either a mayor-council system or a council-manager system like that of a borough, although the mayor or city manager has more oversight and duties compared to their borough counterparts. Pittsburgh and Scranton are the state's only Class 2 and Class 2A cities respectively, and have mayors with some veto power, but are otherwise still governed mostly by their city councils.
Philadelphia is the Commonwealth's only Class 1 city. It has a government similar to that of the Commonwealth itself, with a mayor with strong appointment and veto powers and a 15-member city council that has both law-making and confirmation powers, although unlike its state-level counterpart (the General Assembly), it does not have the authority to override the mayor's veto.
Certain types of legislation that can be passed by the city government require state legislation before coming into force. Unlike the other cities in Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia city government also has oversight of county government, and as such controls the budget for the district attorney, sheriff, and other county offices that have been retained from the county's one-time separate existence; these offices are elected for separately than those for the city government proper.
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