Administrative divisions of Wisconsin

Political and government structures
The administrative divisions of Wisconsin include counties, cities, villages and towns. In Wisconsin, all of these are units of general purpose local government. There are also a number of special purpose districts formed to handle regional concerns, such as school districts. Whether a municipality is a city, village or town is not strictly dependent on the community's population or area, but on the form of government selected by the residents and approved by the Wisconsin State Legislature. Cities and villages can overlap county boundaries; for example, the city of Whitewater is located in Walworth and Jefferson counties.

The county is the primary political subdivision of Wisconsin. Every county has a county seat, often a populous or centrally located city or village, where the government offices for the county are located. Within each county are cities, villages and towns. As of 2016, Wisconsin had 72 counties. The type of executive official in each county varies: 11 counties have a County Executive elected in a nonpartisan election for a four year term; 20 counties have appointed County Administrators; and 41 have appointed Administrative Coordinators. Other officials include sheriffs, district attorneys, clerks, treasurers, coroners, surveyors, registers of deeds, and clerks of circuit court; these officers are elected for four year terms. In most counties, elected coroners have been replaced by appointed medical examiners. State law permits counties to appoint a registered land surveyor in place of electing a surveyor.

In Wisconsin, a city is an autonomous incorporated area within one or more counties. It provides almost all services to its residents and has the highest degree of home rule and taxing jurisdiction of all municipalities. Cities are generally more urbanized than towns. In order to incorporate as a city, a community must have at least 1,000 citizens if it is in a rural area or 5,000 if it is in an urban area. For example, the unincorporated Town of Cedarburg is adjacent to the city of Cedarburg, and the Town of New Glarus completely surrounds the village of New Glarus. There may also be more than one town in the state (although not within the same county) with the same name. For example, there are towns named Albion in Dane County, Jackson County, and Trempealeau County. Towns have less authority than villages and cities; they do not, for instance, have home rule granted to them by the state, but instead have only the specific powers granted to them under state statute. At the minimum, towns maintain their roads, and may maintain either volunteer or "municipal" fire departments, where the firehouse is maintained by the town government. Towns may choose to engage in zoning or provide more services, however, overlapping with those provided by the county. In most cases, towns provide limited services and thus town residents often pay lower taxes than their city or village counterparts. Some towns have been authorized to exercise village powers, increasing their authority. Towns are the only unit of government that allows residents to direct decision by voting at local meetings. Towns tend to be sparsely populated. Many of these named places contain a small cluster of houses, a church or local business such as store or tavern. Although they do not have any governmental function, most are recognized for the common usage and are marked with official green informational highway signs listing the place name with the word 'Unincorporated' underneath. Many of these named places are also placed on the official Wisconsin state highway maps issued by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation but these names were not listed in the index on the same maps until several years ago. Examples include Frog Station, Poland, and North Leeds.

In Wisconsin, special purpose units of government provide specialized services for those who live within the district. They are empowered to tax residents of the district for the services provided in common. Special districts often cross the lines of cities, villages and towns. In 2006, Wisconsin had over 1,100 special districts. These special units of government are created to address issues that are regional in nature, and sometimes to bypass the limits on debt that each municipality may have. The state can also exert more control on special districts through the governor's appointments to district boards. Politicians also set up some special districts to insulate themselves from the sometimes unpopular taxes these boards levy, since the boards are often appointed and not elected. The football district issued bonds to renovate the stadium used by the Green Bay Packers. It repaid its bonds through a 0.5% sales tax on goods sold in the district, which was coextensive with Brown County and was discontinued in 2015, with extraneous revenue at the time distributed to cities in Brown County.