The Municipalities (Kunta in Finnish, Kommun in Swedish) represent the local level of self government in Finland and also act as the basic regional administrative units of the country.
In 2003 there are 446 Municipalities in Finland. Of these 111 are towns, 44 are bilingual and 19 are unilingually Finland-Swedish.
Until 1977 municipalities were divided into towns (kaupunki/stad), market towns (kauppala/köping) and country municipalities (maalaiskunta/landskommun). The market towns were abolished and renamed to towns. The rest of the municipalities were classed as "other municipalities". From 1995 onwards only "municipality" is recogniced by law and any municipality that wishes so can call itself a town.
