In South Africa, wards are geopolitical subdivisions of municipalities

Municipalities of South Africa

Municipalities in South Africa are a division of local government that lie one level down from provincial government, forming the lowest level of democratically elected government structures in the country. The foundation for this layer of government is set out in Chapter 7 of the Constitution of...

 used for electoral purposes. Each metropolitan

Metropolitan municipality (South Africa)

In South Africa, a metropolitan municipality or Category A municipality is a municipality which executes all the functions of local government for a city or conurbation...

 and local municipality

Local municipality (South Africa)

In South Africa, a local municipality or Category B municipality is a type of municipality that serves as the third, and most local, tier of local government...

 is delimited by the Municipal Demarcation Board

Municipal Demarcation Board

The Municipal Demarcation Board is an independent authority responsible for delimiting the boundaries of South African districts and municipalities and the boundaries of the electoral wards within those municipalities.- General :...

 into half as many wards as there are seats on the municipal council (rounding up if there are an odd number of seats). Each ward then elects one councillor directly, and the remaining councillors are elected from party lists so that the overall party balance is proportional to the proportion of votes received by each party.

After the 2011 local elections, there are 4,277 wards in South Africa.

External links

• Municipal Demarcation Board