Municipalities of Estonia
A municipality (, plural ) is the smallest administrative subdivision of Estonia. Each municipality is a unit of self-government with its representative and executive bodies. The municipalities in Estonia cover the entire territory of the country. Municipalities in Estonia are of two types: Urban municipalities or towns (, singular ) Rural municipalities or parishes (, singular ). There is no other status distinction between them. Municipalities may contain one or several settlements. All but 5 urban municipalities (Haapsalu, Narva-Jõesuu, Paide, Pärnu and Tartu) plus 1 rural municipality (Ruhnu) contain only one settlement. As of 2017, there are no longer any "borough-parishes", i.e. rural municipalities with only one borough-type settlement. Ruhnu Parish contains only one village and is therefore a "village-parish". Some municipalities are divided into districts. The 8 urban districts (, singular ) of Tallinn have limited self-government, while other urban districts are formed for administrative purposes. Some rural districts () have limited self-government, while other types of rural districts do not. Municipalities range in population from Tallinn with 427,500 inhabitants to Ruhnu with 68. Previously, as over two-thirds of the municipalities had a population of under 3,000, many of them found it advantageous to co-operate in providing services and