The term unorganized territory has several denotations depending the exact usage and context.

United States

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U.S. Census Bureau

Unorganized territories, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, occur in 10 minor civil division (MCD) states (Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, and South Dakota) where portions of counties are not included in any legally established MCD or independent incorporated place. The U.S. Census Bureau recognizes such separate pieces of territory as one or more separate county subdivisions for statistical purposes. It assigns each unorganized territory a descriptive name, followed by the designation "unorganized territory." Unorganized territories were first used for statistical purposes in conjunction with the 1960 census. ^*

United States territory

An unorganized territory is also a United States territory for which the United States Congress has not enacted an organic act. In this sense, unorganized territories are lands possessed by the federal U.S. government but which are not within any of the states of the Union and have not been "organized" into self-governing units. Currently, all federal unorganized territory is considered to be an Insular area, administered by the Office of Insular Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior. American Samoa is technically unorganized, in that Congress has not passed an organic act, but is self-governing under terms of a constitution last revised in 1967. Historically, Unorganized Territory was a name used by the United States government to refer to the enormous territory in the Great Plains before it was organized into smaller territories. The area was a part of the Louisiana Territory until 1812 and the Missouri Territory until 1820. In 1820 the Missouri Compromise carved the State of Missouri out of the territory, and the rest of the area became unorganized. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 divided the area into the Kansas and Nebraska Territories.

Canada

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Unorganized territories also exist in certain regions of Canada, such as Northern Ontario where there is no region-wide level of government. In Quebec, territory not within the border of a municipality of some sort is unorganized territory.

See also

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• Organized territory
• Incorporated territory

subnational entities | Subdivisions of the United States | Historical regions and territories of the United States