In principle, the word borough designates a self-governing community. In the United States, a borough is a unit of local government below the level of the state. The term is currently used in six states:
- A type of municipality: Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania (also formerly Minnesota)
- A subdivision of a consolidated city, corresponding to another present or previous political subdivision: New York and Virginia
- In Alaska only, a borough is approximately a county-equivalent.
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united and/or states:
“I thought it altogether proper that I should take a brief furlough from official duties at Washington to mingle with you here to-day as a comrade, because every President of the United States must realize that the strength of the Government, its defence in war, the army that is to muster under its banner when our Nation is assailed, is to be found here in the masses of our people.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“Today’s difference between Russia and the United States is that in Russia everybody takes everybody else for a spy, and in the United States everybody takes everybody else for a criminal.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was. It not only divides States and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)