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Local Government Organization and Finance: Poland
T A B L E 9 . 1 Territorial Division of Poland, Average Sizes and Ranges
Indicator
Number of units Area (square kilometers) Average Minimum Maximum Population Average Minimum Maximum
Municipalities (gminy), including cities with county status
About 2,500
Counties (powiaty)
315 and 65 cities with county status
Regions (województwa)
16
125 2 625
826 13 2,987
19,540 9,412 35,598
15,500 1,300 1,628,000
104,000 22,000 1,628,000
2,420,000 1,024,000 5,070,000
Source: Author’s calculations based on data from Bank Danych Regionalnych, Glówny Urz˛ad Statystyczny (Bank of Regional Data, Main Statistical Office).
for the three levels of subnational self-government. Municipal, county, and regional levels cooperate—for example, in economic development policies—but in terms of specific service delivery, the separation is close to perfect. The situation is much more complicated in the relationship between the central and local government levels. In some cases (such as education or some social welfare benefits), nationwide regulations are so strict that local government’s role is to a huge extent reduced to being an agent of central government and implementing central policies. Municipal governments are protected by the Polish constitution, which offers them a general competence clause and specifies that a procedure to change municipal boundaries or liquidate a municipality must include public consultations (although the results of such consultations are not binding for the central government). Other tiers of territorial self-government are not named in the constitution, and their existence depends on laws adopted by the Polish parliament. The constitution also defines basic rules of local government autonomy. It specifies that state supervision of their activity is limited to checking the legality of decisions made by local councils and local administration. It also specifies that local governments must have revenues adequate to their functional responsibilities and that new responsibilities must be accompanied by new sources of revenues. It also says that local governments have a right to set the rates of local fees and taxes, within limits established by the laws.
