The phrase is used as a generalised description in the United Kingdom to refer to a variety of political divisions such as boroughs, counties, unitary authorities, and cities, all of which have a council or similar body exercising a degree of self-government.
Each of the United Kingdom's four constituent countries has its own structure of local government, for example Northern Ireland has local districts; many parts of England have non-metropolitan counties consisting of rural districts; London and many other urban areas have boroughs; there are three islands councils off the coast of Scotland; while the rest of Scotland and all of Wales are divided into unitary authority counties, some of which are officially designated as cities.
[1] Due to the Australian Capital Territory's small size it has no local government and is instead overseen by the ACT Legislative Assembly.
In recent years changes to the structures of local government have given rise to new official designations, while other terms have fallen out of favour.
Restructuring of local government in New South Wales and Queensland in the following decade gave rise to the municipal designations of "region" and "area", for example, the Sunshine Coast of Queensland was formerly divided into several shires, but is now governed by a single Sunshine Coast Regional Council.