France arrondissements, which are, in turn, subdivided into 2,054 cantons. These cantons are then divided into 36,658 communes, which are municipalities with an elected municipal council. Three communes—Paris, Lyon and Marseille—are subdivided into 45 municipal arrondissements. The regions, departments and communes are all known as territorial collectivities, meaning they possess local assemblies as well as an executive. Arrondissements and cantons are merely administrative divisions. However, this was not always the case. Until 1940, the arrondissements were territorial collectivities with an elected assembly, but these were suspended by the Vichy regime and definitely abolished by the Fourth Republic in 1946. In addition
Administrative counties of Ireland county boroughs), while the Irish Free State had 30 administrative counties (including four county boroughs). The administrative counties of Northern Ireland were abandoned as local government areas by the Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 1972. The Act came into effect in 1973. Galway city become a county borough in 1986. In 1994 the administrative county of Dublin was abolished and its area was divided into three parts for the purposes of local government: Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin. In the Republic of Ireland, the 1898 Act was replaced by the Local Government Act 2001, which came into operation on