Municipality of Lokbatan

Lökbatan is a settlement and municipality in Baku, Azerbaijan.[citation needed] It has a population of 33,245. The municipality consists of the settlements of Lökbatan, Şubanı, and Heybət.It is the location of a large mud volcano, and a historic oilfield. One of the first moving pictures filmed in Azerbaijan was of an oil well blowout in the 1930s. The mud volcano produced spectacular flames of natural gas in October 2001.

About municipalities

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. The term is derived from French "municipalité" and Latin "municipalis".The English word "Municipality" derives from the Latin social contract "municipium", meaning duty holders, referring to the Latin communities that supplied Rome with troops in exchange for their own incorporation into the Roman state (granting Roman citizenship to the inhabitants) while permitting the communities to retain their own local governments (a limited autonomy).

The power of municipalities range from virtual autonomy to complete subordination to the state. Municipalities may have the right to tax individuals and corporations with income tax, property tax, and corporate income tax, but may also receive substantial funding from the state.In the United States, "municipality" is usually understood as a city, town, village, or other local government unit, formed by municipal charter from the state as a municipal corporation. In a state law context, some U.S. state codes define "municipality" more widely, from the state itself to any political subdivisions given jurisdiction over an area that may include multiple populated places and unpopulated places.