Local government in Northern Ireland

Elections

Councillors are elected for a four-year term of office under the single transferable vote (STV) system. Elections were last held on 18 May 2023. To qualify for election, a councillor candidate must be:

• at least 18 years of age, and
• a Commonwealth of Nations or European Union citizen

In addition, they must either:

• be a local elector for the district, or
• have, during the whole of the 12-month period prior to the election, either owned or occupied land in the district, or else resided or worked in the district

The following gallery contains maps of local election results from 1993 onwards, with each District Electoral Area coloured according to the party that won the most first preference votes, and darker colours indicating a majority of first preference votes.

History

The current pattern of 11 local government districts was established on 1 April 2015, as a result of the reform process that started in 2005.

The previous pattern of local government in Northern Ireland, with 26 councils, was established in 1973 by the Local Government (Boundaries) Act (Northern Ireland) 1971 and the Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 1972 to replace the previous system established by the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898. The system was based on the recommendations of the Macrory Report, of June 1970, which presupposed the continued existence of the Government of Northern Ireland to act as a regional-level authority.

From 1921 to 1973, Northern Ireland was divided into six administrative counties (subdivided into urban and rural districts) and two county boroughs. The counties and county boroughs continue to exist for the purposes of lieutenancy and shrievalty. This system, with the abolition of rural districts, remains the model for local government in the Republic of Ireland.

In June 2002, the Northern Ireland Executive established a Review of Public Administration to review the arrangements for the accountability, development, administration and delivery of public services. Among its recommendations were a reduction in the number of districts. In 2005 Peter Hain, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, announced proposals to reduce the number of councils to seven. The names and boundaries of the seven districts were announced in March 2007. In March 2008 the restored Northern Executive agreed to create eleven new councils instead of the original seven. The first elections were due to take place in May 2011. However, by May 2010 disagreements among parties in the executive over district boundaries were expected to delay the reforms until 2015. In June 2010 the proposed reforms were abandoned following the failure of the Northern Ireland Executive to reach agreement. However, on 12 March 2012, the Northern Ireland Executive published its programme for government, which included a commitment to reduce the number of councils in Northern Ireland to 11.

Local government districts (1973 to 2015)

The previous set of 26 councils, which preceded the current set of 11 councils, are shown on the below map. They had 583 wards in total – meaning 583 councillors, representing 102 district electoral areas.

Combinations of districts

The districts are combined for various purposes.

ITL level 3

Following Brexit, the UK's Office for National Statistics withdrew from Eurostat, and it has since been using the International Territorial Level classification for UK subdivisions. Between 2021 and 2025, the subdivisions were unchanged from the final NUTS classification, with the "UKxxx" prefix replaced by "TLxxx". In the most recent ITL update, Northern Ireland's Level 3 subdivisions match the 11 Local Government Districts.

Eurostat NUTS level 3 (up to 2024)

In the Eurostat Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS), Northern Ireland was divided into five parts at level 3.

Former education and library boards

There were five education and library boards (ELBs) in Northern Ireland.

As part of the Review of Public Administration process, the library functions of the ELBs were taken over by a new body, the Northern Ireland Library Authority (branded Libraries NI) in April 2009.

The education and skills functions were centralised into a single Education Authority for Northern Ireland in April 2015.

The boards were as follows:

Former health and social services boards

There were four health and social services boards which were replaced by a single Health and Social Care Board in April 2009.

The former health and social services boards were as follows:

Subdivisions of districts

District electoral areas (2012)

Each of the 11 councils is divided into 7 district electoral areas (DEAs), with the exception of Belfast, which has 10 DEAs. Each DEA, in turn, is made up of 5, 6 or 7 wards, with the number of councillors for each DEA equal to the number of wards.

There are 80 DEAs in Northern Ireland in total, and the current DEA boundaries were finalised in 2012, and first used in the 2014 election, with the new councils coming into operation in May 2015. Prior to this, the 1993 election was the last time local government boundaries had been redrawn - between 1993 and 2011, there were 102 DEAs across the old 26 councils, with each council having between 3 and 9 DEAs each.

By definition, DEAs nest exactly within the 11 Local Government Districts. However, they do not nest within the parliamentary constituencies - for example, the DEAs of Newry, Slieve Gullion and Cusher all fall entirely within the Newry and Armagh constituency, but the Armagh DEA does not - one of its wards, Blackwatertown, falls within the Fermanagh and South Tyrone constituency instead. This means there is no exact comparison of local government election results with Assembly/Westminster results.

However, comparisons are possible between combinations of 2012 DEAs, and combinations of DEAs/LGDs from before 2014. For example, the total election results in the Limavady and Benbradagh DEAs from 2014 can be compared with the results of the whole Limavady borough from 2011, as both cover the same area. Similar comparisons are as follows:

Note that Erne West is the only DEA in Northern Ireland whose boundaries were completely unchanged between 1993 and 2012.

The 80 DEAs are the most granular unit of elected representation, thus providing a more localised indicator of voting preferences than the results in the larger parliamentary constituencies.

Under STV, each DEA is a multi-member district, electing 5, 6 or 7 councillors, with all councillors representing the entire DEA. Wards do not have elected representation in their own right, and no election results at ward level are officially recorded or published, besides turnout levels at individual polling stations.

The below map shows each DEA numbered, with the 2012 local government districts in bold. The inset map shows DEAs in the districts of Antrim and Newtownabbey, Ards and North Down, Belfast, and Lisburn and Castlereagh.

Electoral wards (2012)

Electoral wards are the basic unit of Northern Ireland's political geography. Since at least 1973, every local government boundary commission has involved the drawing of ward boundaries, then the grouping of wards into DEAs, such that a DEA has one councillor for each ward it has. Likewise, parliamentary constituencies (and thus, Assembly constituencies) are always made up of combinations of electoral wards.

Electoral wards are also used in allocating funding, such as for urban regeneration programmes under the Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy.

Composition of district councils

This table shows number of councillors by party, election, and district, based on the three local elections that have occurred since local government reform in 2014-15.

'S.' denotes seats. '14', '19' and '23' denote the years 2014, 2019 and 2023. This table does not reflect any notional changes between the 2011 election and the 2014 election. 'Minor Nat.' includes independent nationalists and Aontú. 'Minor Un.' includes independent unionists, NI21 and UKIP. 'Minor Other' includes other independents and Labour Alternative.