The Civic Holiday is meant to replace a city's birthday, also known as Natal Day. Instead of each city and town having a separate birthday celebration and day off, the August Civic Holiday is observed. For example, the Halifax Regional Municipality is made up of the former cities of Halifax and Dartmouth and the town of Bedford. Each of these places used to hold civic birthday celebrations on different days. Many people lived in one jurisdiction but worked in another. This meant significant confusion arose as to which day a person would be excused from work.