Joint council office: According to Section 85 of Act CLXXXIX of 2011 on the local governments,
| "(1) | the villages within a district whose administrative areas are separated by the administrative area of not more than one settlement and the population of each village is no more than two thousand, can create a joint council office. A settlement with a population over two thousand can be a member of a joint council office too. |
| (2) | The total number of inhabitants living in the settlements of a joint council office is at least two thousand, or the number of settlements belonging to a joint council office is at least seven." |
The council of the local government establishes a mayor's office or a joint council office in order to operate the local government, prepare decisions and execute the tasks which are in the scope of mayor's and notary's duties. Moreover the office contributes to the coordination among the local governments and between the local governments and state organisations. Joining or separating from a joint council office is possible only once during a governmental period, within 60 days after the general local governmental elections. Data on joint council offices are produced partly by using the data based on the reports of county government offices and registered in the Local Governmental Methodology Department of the State Secretariat for Local Governance of Ministry of Interior and partly by using the yearly reports sent to the HCSO by the local governments.
Local nationality government: According to Act CLXXIX of 2011 on the rights of nationalities, it is the organisation providing nationality public service, operating in the form of a body, having a legal entity that was established by the given law through democratic elections. It is set up in order to put across the rights of nationalities, defend and represent their interests, arrange independently the nationality public affairs belonging to its scope of tasks and powers on a local, regional and national level.
Large region: In accordance with the population thresholds laid down in Regulation No. 1059/2003/EC, Hungary has 3 statistical large regions at NUTS level 1 since 1 May 2004. According to the provisions of the Regulation NUTS level 1 units should have a population of 3 million at minimum and 7 million at maximum.
Region: A regional development unit regarded as a whole from social, economic or environmental aspects, serving planning-statistical and development purposes, comprising one or more counties (and the capital) and bordered by the administrative boundaries of the counties concerned. The 8 planning-statistical regions in Hungary are non-administrative units corresponding to level 2 of the NUTS classification.
County: The highest level unit in self-government administration. It is an administrative unit corresponding to level 3 of the NUTS classification laid down in Regulation No. 1059/2003/EC.
District: is an administrative territorial unit which is a part of a county and involves a certain group of settlements. It was created by splitting a county. As from the 1st of January, 2015, 197 districts have been operated.
Capital: The capital is the seat of national public administration and top state bodies. Its service functions cover the whole of the country. Legal rules on the administrative and legal status of the capital are particular, differing from those on other towns. It is an administrative unit corresponding to level 2 of the NUTS classification laid down in Regulation No. 1059/2003/EC.
Town with county's rights: Is a town which, in its administrative area, performs the tasks and functions of a county as its own functions. The way of transformation into a town with county's rights and the rights and obligations thereof are laid down in legal rules. The basic condition for a town to become a town with county's rights is that its population should exceed 50 thousand.
County seat: A county seat is a settlement designated by the respective legal rule as the seat of the county. County government and in general other bodies the competence of which cover a whole county are operated there.
Settlement: The basic territorial and organisational (administrative) unit in the administrative territorial breakdown, i.e. the capital, a district of the capital, a town with county's rights, a town, a large community, or a community.
Town: A settlement which has some central role in the geographical division of labour, and is typically not an agricultural settlement. It is separated in a complex manner from villages based on the services it provides. It is a basic territorial and organisational (administrative) unit in public administration, the legal status of which is a town.
Large community: Is different from a community in that it has already been a large community when Act LXV of 1990 on Local Governments entered into effect or has at least 5000 inhabitants. If a large community is adequately developed, it may apply for a town title.
Community: Is a village which has an individual, own image separate from other settlements, and is able to establish a local government and to perform its local public functions. It is a basic territorial and organisational (administrative) unit in public administration, the legal status of which is other than a town.
Beneficiary districts: 290/2014 on the classification of beneficiary areas. (XI. 26.), which are considered to be beneficiaries according to their development. The indicators of the districts are obtained by summarizing the settlement data. The beneficiary is considered to be the district whose calculated complex indicator is below the average of the complex indicators of all districts. Using this threshold, the current government decree classifies 109 districts as beneficiaries, of which 18 districts must be created and 36 districts must be developed with a complex program.
Beneficiary settlements: The indicator measuring development / backwardness is essentially the same among districts and settlements, the calculation procedure follows the same principles.
Agglomeration: Settlement structure with various functional interactions (workplace-residence, business-economic, commercial-market, educational, cultural, health, various servicing) among the central settlement and the neighbouring ones. Intensive agglomeration processes result in contiguous, physically united settlement area and physically merged settlements.
Agglomeration area: Settlement structure with clear, but unfinished agglomeration patterns. Concerning affected areas, inter-settlement, regional and settlement merging interactions are less intensive than in existing agglomerations. Deepening agglomeration processes may result in agglomerations.