thumb|400px|Rural and specialized municipalities, cities, towns, and select hamlets in Alberta

thumb|400px|alt=Locations of Alberta's specialized and rural municipalities|Distribution of Alberta's [[List of specialized municipalities in Alberta|6 specialized municipalities (red) and 74 rural municipalities, which include municipal districts that are often branded as counties (orange), improvement districts (dark green) and special areas (light green) (2020)]]

The province of Alberta, Canada, is divided into ten types of local governments – urban municipalities (including cities, towns, villages and summer villages), specialized municipalities, rural municipalities (including municipal districts (often named as counties), improvement districts, and special areas), Métis settlements, and Indian reserves. All types of municipalities are governed by local residents and were incorporated under various provincial acts, with the exception of improvement districts (governed by either the provincial or federal government), and Alberta's Indian reserves (governed by local band governments under federal jurisdiction).

Alberta also has numerous unincorporated communities (including urban service areas, hamlets and a townsite) that are not independent municipalities in their own right. However, they are all recognized as sub-municipal entities by Ministry of Municipal Affairs under the jurisdiction of specialized municipalities or rural municipalities, with the exception of the lone townsite (its jurisdiction is shared with an Indian reserve that surrounds it).

With the exception of Métis settlements, Statistics Canada recognizes all of Alberta's municipalities as census subdivisions and groups them into 19 census divisions based on geography. Within census divisions, Statistics Canada groups some of Alberta's municipalities/census subdivisions into two census metropolitan areas (CMAs) or 12 census agglomerations (CAs) for enumeration purposes. All CMAs include large urban centres and surrounding census subdivisions. All CAs also include large urban centres and in some cases their surrounding census subdivisions.

With the exception of Indian reserves, the administration of municipalities in Alberta is regulated by the Municipal Government Act, the Special Areas Act and the Metis Settlements Act.

As of 2019, the combined unofficial population of all of Alberta's municipalities was 4,271,759.

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Municipalities

Urban municipalities

Cities

According to Section 82 of the Municipal Government Act (MGA), an area may incorporate as a city if:

  • it has a population of 10,000 people or more; and
  • the majority of its buildings are on parcels of land smaller than .

Alberta currently has a total of 19 cities with a combined population totalling 2,959,559 as of 2019.

Summer villages

According to former Section 79 of the Municipal Government Act (MGA), a summer village is an area that:

  • has at least 60 parcels of land developed with dwelling buildings; and
  • has a population of less than 300 persons where the majority of the persons who would be electors do not permanently reside in that area.

As a result of Section 79 being repealed,

Alberta's 63 municipal districts have a combined population totalling 471,852 as of 2019.

!scope="colgroup" colspan=5| 2021 Census of Population

!scope=col rowspan=2 class="unsortable"| Remarks

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!Population<br />(2021)

!Population<br />(2016)

!Change

!Land<br />area<br />(km<sup>2</sup>)

!Population<br />density<br />(/km<sup>2</sup>)

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!scope=row style="text-align: left;"| <span style="display:none">004</span>Improvement District No. 4 (Waterton)

|align=right| || ||align=right| ||align=right| || Coincident with Waterton Lakes National Park

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!scope=row style="text-align: left;"| <span style="display:none">009</span>Improvement District No. 9 (Banff)

|align=right| || ||align=right| ||align=right| || Coincident with Banff National Park excluding the Town of Banff

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!scope=row style="text-align: left;"| <span style="display:none">012</span>Improvement District No. 12 (Jasper National Park)

|align=right| || ||align=right| ||align=right| || Coincident with Jasper National Park excluding the Municipality of Jasper

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!scope=row style="text-align: left;"| <span style="display:none">013</span>Improvement District No. 13 (Elk Island)

|align=right| || ||align=right| ||align=right| || Coincident with Elk Island National Park

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!scope=row style="text-align: left;"| <span style="display:none">024</span>Improvement District No. 24 (Wood Buffalo)

|align=right| || ||align=right| ||align=right| || Coincident with the Alberta portion of Wood Buffalo National Park excluding Peace Point 222

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!scope=row style="text-align: left;"| <span style="display:none">025</span>Improvement District No. 25 (Willmore Wilderness)

|align=right| || ||align=right| ||align=right| || Coincident with Willmore Wilderness Park

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!scope=row style="text-align: left;"| <span style="display:none">Kananaskis</span>Kananaskis Improvement District

|align=right| || ||align=right| ||align=right| || Consists mostly of Kananaskis Country

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!scope="row" style="text-align:center"| Total improvement districts

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Special areas

Special areas are rural municipalities created in 1938 under the authority of the Special Areas Act.

These Orders in Council (see Schedule 1, Section 7

Townsites

A townsite is a type of unincorporated community that is not officially defined under the Municipal Government Act (MGA), but it is generally regarded as an independent urban area within an Indian reserve that is comparable in population, land area, services, and built form, to that of Alberta's incorporated towns. Essentially, townsites would meet the eligibility requirements of the MGA to incorporate as a town if they were not on Indian reserve lands under federal jurisdiction.

Redwood Meadows is Alberta's only townsite at this time and is located within the Tsuutʼina Nation.

Other unincorporated communities

Métis settlements

Métis settlements are rural areas inhabited by the indigenous Métis in Alberta and were established and recognized in 1936 under the Métis Population Betterment Act. The settlements provide an autonomous land base, allow better access to education, health and other social services, and provide economic development opportunities for the only recognized Métis land-base in Canada.