Cantons serve as the fourth level of administrative division in France's five-tier system, with 1,989 cantons currently in existence. Unlike communes or departments, cantons primarily function as electoral constituencies for departmental council elections rather than as units of local governance. Each canton elects one or two councilors to the departmental council (conseil départemental), depending on the current electoral system. Historically, cantons also served as jurisdictional boundaries for justices of the peace and gendarmerie brigades. The French government significantly reformed the cantonal map in 2014, reducing the total number and redefining boundaries to achieve more balanced population distribution. While cantons lack their own administrative bodies or budgets, they remain important for organizing certain public services and statistical data collection at the sub-departmental level.