township

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A subdivision of a county in most northeast and Midwest US states, having the status of a unit of local government with varying governmental powers.
• noun A public land surveying unit of 36 sections or 36 square miles.
• noun An ancient administrative division of a large parish in England.
• noun A suburb or city in South Africa formerly designated by the government as a predominantly black residential area.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun In Anglo-Saxon times, the area of land occupied by a community inhabiting a fenced homestead, a farm, or a village surrounded by an inclosure.
• noun In law: In England, a town or vill where there are more than one in a parish; a division of a parish in which there is a separate constable, and for which there may be separate overseers of the poor.
• noun In the United States, a territorial district, subordinate to a county, into which counties in many of the States are divided, the inhabitants of which are invested with political and administrative powers for regulating their own minor local affairs, such as repairing roads, maintaining schools, and providing for the poor; also, the inhabitants of such a district in their organized capacity.
• noun In Australia, a village or small town.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun The district or territory of a town.
• noun In surveys of the public land of the United States, a division of territory six miles square, containing 36 sections.
• noun In Canada, one of the subdivisions of a county.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun The territory of a town; a subdivision of a county.
• noun South Africa, Pre 1994 An area set aside for non-white occupation.
• noun South Africa, Post 1994 A non-white (usually sub-economic) area attached to a city.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun an administrative division of a county