A municipality is usually an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government or jurisdiction. The term municipality is also used to mean the governing, ruling body of a municipality.A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district.efore 1971, a municipality could be called a town (stad), a koeping köping or a rural (municipality); landskommun present municipalities which used to be towns are still commonly called. Towns sweden is also divided into 21 (counties), laen län each containing one or more of. the municipalities