Classification of localities and their parts in Poland

According to the national law, settlement units or localities (Polish: miejscowość) are broadly classified in Poland as one of the following:^[1]

a) a principal locality (miejscowość podstawowa) - an independent locality, e.g. a city/town or a village, all of them are always principal localities, and

b) a part of a locality (część miejscowości) - an officially named, non-independent integral part of a city/town, a village or other principal locality, distinguished from other parts of the principal locality by a separate name or type - e.g. a quarter (dzielnica), always an integral part of a city or a town

Some of the types, namely a settlement, a colony, a neighbourhood and a hamlet, can be either a principal locality (rural only) or a part of a locality, the latter within any rural or urban principal locality in the case of a settlement, within a city/town or a village in the case of a colony and a neighbourhood, or within a village only in the case of a hamlet.