Definition
A particular place, geographic area, or defined territorial unit. In legal usage, LOCALITY carries several distinct meanings depending on context:
1. Geographic place or site. The most general legal sense: a specific location, district, neighborhood, or region. Courts and statutes invoke "locality" when territorial connection matters — as in determining which law governs, which court has jurisdiction, or where an act or injury occurred.
2. Local governmental unit. A municipality, county, township, or other subdivision of state government that exercises limited, delegated authority over local affairs within its territorial bounds. In this sense, a locality is defined both by its geography and by the scope of power conferred on it by the state. The term overlaps heavily with "municipality" and "local government," though "locality" often appears in statutes where the drafters mean to capture the full range of subdivisions without enumerating each type.
3. Scots law (historical). In Scottish marriage contracts, "locality" denotes a life-rent created in favor of the wife in lieu of her legal right of terce — the customary one-third life-interest in her husband's heritable estate. This usage has no direct equivalent in English or American law.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A place or area, particularly one considered the site of certain activities or a built-up area such as a city, town, or village; also, the quality of having a position in space.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The state or condition of belonging to a definite place; position or situation; a geographic place, especially as identified with a particular mineral, plant, or feature; also, limitation to a county, district, or place.
The common and legal meanings overlap substantially — both center on "a place." The gap emerges at the edges. In legal contexts, locality is frequently a term of art triggering specific jurisdictional, choice-of-law, or governmental-structure consequences. A statute granting power to "localities" is not merely gesturing at geography; it is defining which political subdivisions may act and on what authority. Researchers should not assume that the everyday sense of "a place" fully captures what a legal instrument means when it uses "locality."
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Common Confusion
LOCALITY vs. MUNICIPALITY vs. JURISDICTION: These three terms are frequently used interchangeably in statutes, regulations, and opinions, but they do not always mean the same thing. "Municipality" typically refers to an incorporated city or town; "jurisdiction" emphasizes the territorial scope of legal authority; "locality" is often the broadest, sometimes sweeping in unincorporated areas, counties, and special districts that "municipality" might exclude. When reading a statute that uses "locality," check the definitions section — drafters sometimes define the term expansively and sometimes narrowly.
LOCALITY vs. DOMICILE: In conflict-of-laws analysis, the "locality" of an act or injury (where it physically occurred) is conceptually distinct from a party's domicile (where they are legally at home). Historical choice-of-law rules, particularly the lex loci delicti rule, turned on the locality of the wrong. Modern approaches have largely displaced strict locality rules, but the distinction remains important when reading older cases.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encounter "locality" across several distinct legal domains, and the term does not always behave the same way in each.
In constitutional and administrative law, "locality" frequently appears in the context of delegated governmental power. State enabling statutes grant localities authority to act; preemption doctrine determines what localities may not do once the state or federal government has occupied the field. The specific scope of "locality" in any given statute controls which entities are bound or empowered — and whether a county, special district, or unincorporated community falls within or outside the term is often litigated.
In conflict of laws and tort law, older materials — particularly treatises and cases from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries — rely heavily on the "locality rule" (also called lex loci) to determine governing law. These materials use "locality" in a narrow geographic sense. Researchers reading across eras must be alert to the shift: post-Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws, choice-of-law analysis moved away from territorial locality toward interest balancing, so the term's weight in the analysis changed considerably.
In tax law, "locality" bears on the treatment of state and local bond interest, residency determinations, and the allocation of income among taxing jurisdictions. Local bonds issued by qualifying localities receive federal income tax exclusion treatment — making the precise definition of "locality" relevant to whether an issuer qualifies.
In labor and employment law, "locality pay" and "prevailing wage" regimes require identification of the relevant locality to set applicable wage rates. The locality in those contexts is often defined by regulation rather than common law.
Anderson's Dictionary of Law cross-references PLACE for the primary treatment, signaling that the two terms share conceptual territory. Researchers should pursue both headings when using historical dictionaries.
The Scots law meaning — life-rent in marriage contracts — is a genuine historical usage preserved in all four source dictionaries. It is entirely obsolete outside Scottish legal history and should not be imported into any other research context.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries present a fragmented picture. Black's (1st and 2nd editions) and Bouvier's converge on the Scots law life-rent definition as the primary entry, suggesting that editors of those works found that technical meaning the most distinctively legal usage warranting treatment — the more general geographic sense being self-explanatory. Bouvier cross-references JOINTURE, connecting locality to broader marital property concepts in Scots law. Anderson's Dictionary of Law takes a different editorial approach entirely, redirecting to PLACE, implying that the geographic and governmental senses were handled under that heading rather than here.
This distribution reflects a historical editorial choice, not a judgment about which meaning was more prevalent in practice. The governmental-unit and geographic-trigger senses of locality were extremely common in American legal usage throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries but were apparently treated as too obvious to require extended definition.
None of the historical dictionaries addresses the conflict-of-laws locality rule in detail under this heading, even though that doctrine generated substantial litigation. Researchers should not treat the sparse historical dictionary coverage as evidence that the term was legally unimportant — it reflects the dictionaries' organization, not the term's significance.
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Jurisdictional Note
What counts as a "locality" for statutory purposes varies by state. Some states define the term in general construction statutes to include counties, municipalities, and townships; others restrict it to incorporated municipalities. Federal statutes using "locality" — particularly in labor, environmental, and immigration preemption contexts — sometimes define the term explicitly and sometimes leave it to regulatory construction. Always check applicable definitions provisions before assuming the ordinary geographic meaning controls.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Local Administrative Agencies and Hearing Officers (The Law Mind Administrative Law & Government Encyclopedia)
State and Local Immigration Enforcement and Preemption Issues (The Law Mind Administrative Law & Government Encyclopedia)
Exclusions — Interest on State and Local Bonds (The Law Mind Tax Encyclopedia)
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