s&w & sile

Poland has a three-tier administrative division since 1999. On the first level, Poland is divided into 16 voivodeships (Polish: województwa, singular – województwo). These are sub-divided in 380 counties (Polish: powiaty, singular – powiat), and these counties contain 2,477 municipalities, known as gminas (plural - gminy).The municipalities are grouped into four categories:

66 cities with county rights, which are among the largest cities in Poland, which, in addition to being a municipality are also a county on its own and also have duties of such.
302 urban municipalities, which usually contain a small-to-medium-sized city alone.
652 urban-rural gminas, which contain all the other towns not in any of the above categories as well as surrounding rural areas
1,523 rural gminas, which do not have any towns located on their territory.The status and the changes in borders of gminas are decided by the Council of Ministers. While their creation and dissolution is also usually decided by it, in exceptional cases, the parliament might direct the organ to issue ordinances ordering dissolution (as it was the case with gmina Ostrowice). These ordinances take effect on 1 January of the year following the year of publication of the ordinance.
Major changes to the framework (such as a restructuring of local administration or regulation of the duties and powers of the self-government) is only possible by law.
The current framework and regulation of powers and duties of the local self-government was adopted in 1998 and became effective on 1 January 1999, with special regulations concerning Warsaw came into existence in 2002. For more details, visit the article on gminas.

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