Consolidated City—A consolidated government is a unit of local government for which the functions of an incorporated place and its county or minor civil division (MCD) have merged. This action results in both the primary incorporated place and the county or MCD continuing to exist as legal entities, even though the county or MCD performs few or no governmental functions and has few or no elected officials. Where this occurs, and where one or more other incorporated places in the county or MCD continue to function as separate governments, even though they have been included in the consolidated government, the primary incorporated place is referred to as a consolidated city. The Census Bureau classifies the separately incorporated places within the consolidated city as place entities and creates a separate place (balance) record for the portion of the consolidated city not within any other place. Consolidated cities are represented in the 2013 Census TIGER/Line Shapefiles by a 5 character numeric FIPS code and a National Standard (ANSI) code.

Consolidated City (Balance) Portions refer to the areas of a consolidated city not included in another separately incorporated place. For example, Butte-Silver Bow, MT, is a consolidated city (former Butte city and Silver Bow County) that includes the separately incorporated municipality of Walkerville city. The area of the consolidated city that is not in Walkerville city is assigned to ButteSilver Bow (balance). The name always includes the “(balance)” identifier. Balance portions of consolidated cities are included in the Place shapefiles.