Municipal means belonging to the local town government. Run by the council, and paid for out of local taxes.
It attaches to services and buildings: a municipal swimming pool, municipal waste, a municipal car park. The word carries a slightly institutional flavour, so describing something as municipal often implies it is functional rather than charming. It is commoner in American and continental European English than in British, where council does most of the same work. The noun municipality means the town or district itself.
1adjectivemunicipalRelating to a town or city and its local government.
“The municipal library closes at five.”
A municipality takes on its own duties. Latin mūniceps joins mūnus, duty, to capiō, to take, and a free town was one that shouldered its obligations itself.
Proto-Indo-European
*keh₂p-
Latin
mūnicipālis — of or belonging to a citizen or a free town
French
municipal
English, today
municipal
Built from
French municipal, from Latin mūnicipālis (“of or belonging to a citizen or a free town”), from mūniceps (“a citizen, an inhabitant of a free town”), from mūnus (“duty”) + capiō (“to take”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA