The comune provides many of the basic civil functions: registry of births and deaths, registry of deeds, and contracting for local roads and public works. It is headed by a mayor assisted by a legislative body, the consiglio comunale, and an executive body, the giunta comunale. The mayor and members of the consiglio comunale are elected together by resident citizens: the coalition of the elected mayor gains three fifths of the consiglio's seats. The giunta comunale is chaired by the mayor, who appoints others members, called assessor, one of whom serves as deputy mayor. The offices of the comune are housed in a building usually called the municipio, or palazzo comunale. As of February 2019 there were 7,918 comuni in Italy; they vary considerably in area and population. For example, the comune of Rome, in Lazio, has an area of 1,307.71 km² and a population of 2,761,477 inhabitants, and is both the largest and the most populated; Atrani in the province of Salerno was the smallest comune by area, with only 0.12 km², and Morterone is the smallest by population. The density of the comuni varies widely by province and region: the province of Barletta-Andria-Trani, for example, has 391,224 inhabitants in 10 municipalities, or over 39,000 inhabitants per municipality; whereas the province of Isernia has 85,237 inhabitants in 52 municipalities, or 1,640 inhabitants per municipality – roughly twenty-four times more communal units per inhabitant. There are inefficiencies at both ends of the scale, and there is concern about optimizing the size of the comuni so they may best function in the modern world, but planners are hampered by the historical resonances of the comuni, which often reach back many hundreds of years, or even a full millennium. While provinces and regions are sanctioned by the constitution of the Republic of Italy, and subject to fairly frequent border changes, the natural cultural unit is indeed the comune, for many Italians, their hometown. Many comuni also have a municipal police, which is responsible for public order duties. Traffic control is their main function in addition to controlling commercial establishments to ensure they open and close according to their license.
Subdivisions
Administrative areas inside comuni varies according to their population. Comuni with at least 250,000 residents are divided into , for instance, is a frazione of Bra. In recent years the frazioni have become more important thanks to the institution of the consiglio di frazione, a local form of government which can interact with the comune to address local needs, requests and claims. Even smaller places are called località.
Smaller administrative divisions called Municipio, Rione, Quartiere, Terziere, Sestiere or Contrada, which are similar to districts and neighbourhoods.
Sometimes a frazione might be more populated than the capoluogo; and rarely, owing to unusual circumstances, the town hall and its administrative functions can be moved to one of the frazioni: but the comune still retains the name of the capoluogo. In some cases, a comune might not have a capoluogo but only some frazioni. In these cases, it is a comune sparso and the frazione which houses the town hall is a sede municipale.
Homonymy
There are not many perfect homonymous Italian municipalities. There are only six cases in 12 comuni:
