Subdivisions of Switzerland difficulties maintaining the civil services they need to perform the duties they are required to do. In an effort to reduce expenses, many municipalities are combining together (through mergers or the creation of special-purpose districts). This restructuring is generally encouraged by the cantonal governments and the rate of these unions is increasing. "Cities" ("villes" or "Städte") are the municipalities with more than 10'000 inhabitants or smaller places which had medieval town rights. There is no specific designation for smaller communities such as "village" or "town". Some subdivisions that exist are: Subdivisions of Switzerland The Swiss Confederation comprises the 26 cantons
Cantons of Luxembourg Cantons of Luxembourg The 12 cantons (, , ) of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg are areas of local government at the first level of Local administrative unit (LAU-1) in the European Union's Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics for Eurostat purposes. They were subdivisions of the three Districts of Luxembourg until 2015, when the district level of government was abolished. The cantons are in turn subdivided into 102 communes (i.e. municipalities). The following list gives the names of the cantons in French and Luxembourgish (in that order) which are both official languages of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg: In