Section 55. As the primary object of a municipal corporation is to invest the inhabitants of a defined locality with a corporate existence, mainly for the purposes of local self-government, it is obviously necessary that the geographical boundaries of such municipal corporation should be definite, fixed and certain. As all persons resident within the corporation possess rights and are under obligations and as the local jurisdiction of the incorporated place is, in most cases, confined to the limits of the municipal corporation, it is undeniably essential that the territory included in such corporation be well defined and clearly bounded.1

The legislature, in the absence of constitutional restrictions, has the power to determine the boundaries of a municipality and to enlarge, alter and restrict them from time to time.2

1 "The fundamental idea of a municipal corporation proper, both in England and in this country, is to invest compact or dense populations with the power of local self-government. Indeed, the necessity for such corporations springs from the existence of centers or agglomerations of population, having, by reason of density and numbers, local or peculiar interests and wants, not common to adjoining sparsely settled or agricultural region. It is necessary to draw the line which separates the place and people to be incorporated. This is with us a legislative function; and, therefore, in a special charter incorporating a place, the boundaries are expressly defined in the charter itself, and the power of the legislature by its direct action thus to determine the extent of the geographical limits of the corporation is very broad, and in fact unlimited, except where the provisions of the charter are such as would contravene constitutional limitations, express or implied." Dillon Mun. Corp. (3rd ed.), Vol. I, Par. 183. 2 Mt. Pleasant vs. Beckwith, 100 U. S., 524; Ang. & A. Corp., Par. 31; Galesburg vs. Hawk-inson, 75 III., 152.