Administrative division

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Administrative divisions [1] (also administrative units, [2] [3] [4] administrative regions, [5] #-level subdivisions, subnational entities, or constituent states, as well as many similar generic terms) are geographical areas into which a particular independent sovereign state is divided. Such a unit usually has an administrative authority with the power to take administrative or policy decisions for its area. [3]

Contents

Description

Usually, sovereign states have several levels of administrative division. Common names for the principal (largest) administrative divisions include: states (subnational states, rather than sovereign states), provinces, lands, oblasts and regions. These in turn are often subdivided into smaller administrative units known by names such as comarcas, raions or districts, which are further subdivided into municipalities, communes or communities constituting the smallest units of subdivision (the local governments). Some administrative division names (such as departments, cantons, prefectures, counties or governorates) can be used for principal, second-level, or third-level divisions.

The levels of administrative divisions and their structure largely varies by country (and sometimes within a single country). Usually the smaller the country is (by area or population), the fewer levels of administrative divisions it has. For example, Vatican City does not have any administrative subdivisions, and Monaco has only one level (both are city-states), while such countries as France and Pakistan have five levels each. The United States is composed of states, possessions, territories, and a federal district, each with varying numbers of subdivisions.

The principal administrative division of a country is sometimes called the "first-level (or first-order) administrative division" or "first administrative level". Its next subdivision might be called "second-level administrative division" or "second administrative level" and so on. [1] [4] [6] An alternative terminology is provided by the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics which terms the principal division as the second level or NUTS-2.

Administrative divisions are conceptually separate from dependent territories, with the former being an integral part of the state and the other being only under some lesser form of control. However, the term "administrative division" can include dependent territories as well as accepted administrative divisions (for example, in geographical databases).[ citation needed ]

Communities united in a federation under a federal government are more specifically known as federated states. A federated state may be referred to as a province, region, canton, land, governorate, oblast, emirate, or country. [7] [8] [9] Administrative units that are not federated or confederated but enjoy a greater degree of autonomy or self-government than other territories within the same country can be considered autonomous regions or de facto constituent states of that country. This relationship is by some authors called a federacy or asymmetric federalism. [10] An example is the autonomous republic of Karakalpakstan within Uzbekistan. [11]

Examples

Terminology

Due to variations in their use worldwide, consistency in the translation of terms from non-English to English is sometimes difficult to maintain. In many of the following terms originating from British cultural influence, areas of relatively low mean population density might bear a title of an entity one would expect to be either larger or smaller. There is no fixed rule, for "all politics is local" as is perhaps well demonstrated by their relative lack of systemic order.

In the realm of self-government, any of these can and does occur along a stretch of road—which for the most part is passing through rural, unsettled countryside. Since the terms are administrative political divisions of the local regional government, their exact relationship and definitions are subject to home rule considerations, tradition, as well as state statute law and local governmental (administrative) definition and control. In British cultural legacy, some territorial entities began with fairly expansive counties which encompass an appreciably large area, but were divided over time into a number of smaller entities.

Within those entities are the large and small cities or towns, which may or may not be the county seat. Some of the world's larger cities culturally, if not officially, span several counties, and those crossing state or provincial boundaries have much in common culturally as well, but are rarely incorporated within the same municipal government. Many sister cities share a water boundary, which quite often serves as a border of both cities and counties. For example, Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts appear to the casual traveler as one large city, while locally they each are quite culturally different and occupy different counties.

List

Urban or rural regions

General terms for these incorporated places include "municipality", "settlement", "locality", and "populated place".

Indigenous

See also

World political divisions Blank Map World Secondary Political Divisions.svg
World political divisions

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Municipality</span> Local government area

A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.

A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French comté denoting a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count (earl) or a viscount. Literal equivalents in other languages, derived from the equivalent of "count", are now seldom used officially, including comté, contea, contado, comtat, condado, Grafschaft, graafschap, and zhupa in Slavic languages; terms equivalent to 'commune' or 'community' are now often instead used.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Departments of France</span> Administrative subdivision in France

In the administrative divisions of France, the department is one of the three levels of government under the national level, between the administrative regions and the communes. Ninety-six departments are in metropolitan France, with an additional five constituting overseas departments, which are also classified as overseas regions. Departments are further subdivided into 333 arrondissements and 2,054 cantons. These last two levels of government have no political autonomy, instead serving as the administrative basis for the local organisation of police, fire departments as well as, in certain cases, elections.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Local government</span> Lowest in the administration pyramid

Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of governance or public administration within a particular sovereign state.

In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics, human impact characteristics, and the interaction of humanity and the environment. Geographic regions and sub-regions are mostly described by their imprecisely defined, and sometimes transitory boundaries, except in human geography, where jurisdiction areas such as national borders are defined in law. More confined or well bounded portions are called locations or places.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Federation</span> Political union of partially self-governing territories under a national government

A federation is an entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governing status of the component states, as well as the division of power between them and the central government, is constitutionally entrenched and may not be altered by a unilateral decision, neither by the component states nor the federal political body without constitutional amendment.

A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions of municipalities, school district, or political district.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Federated state</span> Territorial and constitutional community forming part of a federal union

A federated state is a territorial and constitutional community forming part of a federation. A federated state does not have international sovereignty since powers are divided between the other federated states and the federal government. Unlike international sovereign states, which have what is often referred to as Westphalian sovereignty, federated states operate under their domestic or federal law with relation to the rest of the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Administrative geography of the United Kingdom</span>

The administrative geography of the United Kingdom is complex, multi-layered and non-uniform. The United Kingdom, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe, consists of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. For local government in the United Kingdom, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales each have their own system of administrative and geographic demarcation. Consequently, there is "no common stratum of administrative unit encompassing the United Kingdom".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Subdivisions of Scotland</span> Present or former administrative subdivisions of Scotland

For local government purposes, Scotland is divided into 32 areas designated as "council areas", which are all governed by single-tier authorities designated as "councils". They have the option under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1997 of being known as a "comhairle" when opting for a Gaelic name; only Comhairle nan Eilean Siar has chosen this option, whereas the Highland Council has adopted its Gaelic form alongside its English equivalent, informally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Districts of Libya</span>

In Libya there are currently 106 districts, second level administrative subdivisions known in Arabic as baladiyat. The number has varied since 2013 between 99 and 108. The first level administrative divisions in Libya are currently the governorates (muhafazat), which have yet to be formally delineated, but which were originally tripartite as: Tripolitania in the northwest, Cyrenaica in the east, and Fezzan in the southwest; and later divided into ten governorates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Census geographic units of Canada</span> Term used in Canada

The census geographic units of Canada are the census subdivisions defined and used by Canada's federal government statistics bureau Statistics Canada to conduct the country's quinquennial census. These areas exist solely for the purposes of statistical analysis and presentation; they have no government of their own. They exist on four levels: the top-level (first-level) divisions are Canada's provinces and territories; these are divided into second-level census divisions, which in turn are divided into third-level census subdivisions and fourth-level dissemination areas.

A governorate or governate is an administrative division of a state that is headed by a governor. As English-speaking nations tend to call regions administered by governors either states or provinces, the term governorate is typically used to calque divisions of non-English-speaking administrations.

An autonomous administrative division is a subnational administrative division or internal territory of a sovereign state that has a degree of autonomy — self-governance — under the national government. Autonomous areas are distinct from other constituent units of a federation in that they possess unique powers for their given circumstances. Typically, it is either geographically distinct from the rest of the state or populated by a national minority, which may exercise home rule. Decentralization of self-governing powers and functions to such divisions is a way for a national government to try to increase democratic participation or administrative efficiency or to defuse internal conflicts. States that include autonomous areas may be federacies, federations, or confederations. Autonomous areas can be divided into territorial autonomies, subregional territorial autonomies, and local autonomies.

The administrative divisions of India are subnational administrative units of India; they are composed of a nested hierarchy of administrative divisions.

A province is an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman provincia, which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outside Italy. The term province has since been adopted by many countries. In some countries with no actual provinces, "the provinces" is a metaphorical term meaning "outside the capital city".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Political divisions of Spain</span>

Government in Spain is divided into three spheres or levels: the State itself, the regions or autonomous communities and local entities. These levels are not hierarchical, meaning there is no supremacy or primacy of one over the other, but rather they are separately defined by their jurisdictional powers.

References

  1. 1 2 "Administrative divisions - The World Factbook". Central Intelligence Agency. Archived from the original on 2021-03-25. Retrieved 2021-03-26.
  2. ↑ "General maps | Geospatial, location information for a better world". United Nations. Archived from the original on 2021-04-10. Retrieved 2021-03-26.
  3. 1 2 "02003R1059-20191113". EUR-Lex. Article 3(1). Archived from the original on 2021-05-21. Retrieved 2021-03-25.
  4. 1 2 "Global Administrative Unit Layers (GAUL)". GeoNetwork. FAO. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015.
  5. ↑ "OECD Glossary of Statistical Terms - Administrative regions Definition". OECD Statistics. August 26, 2004. Archived from the original on 2021-08-27. Retrieved 2021-08-27.
  6. ↑ "Second Administrative Level Boundaries | Geospatial Information Section & Statistics Division | United Nations". unsalb.org. Archived from the original on 2021-04-04. Retrieved 2021-03-26.
  7. ↑ Bird, Richard M (2009). "Overview: Constituent units risk lengthy dependency on federal aid". Forum of Federations . Archived from the original on 2010-12-18. Retrieved 2009-11-01.
  8. ↑ The Australian National Dictionary: Fourth Edition, pg 1395. (2004) Canberra. ISBN   978-0-19-551771-2.
  9. ↑ California Archived 2015-05-04 at the Wayback Machine . Encyclopædia Britannica. Accessed 2009-11-01.
  10. ↑ Stepan, Alfred (1999), "Federalism and Democracy: Beyond the U.S. Model" (PDF), Journal of Democracy, 10 (4): 19–34, doi:10.1353/jod.1999.0072, S2CID   201765897 [ permanent dead link ]
  11. ↑ International Covenant On Civil And Political Rights Archived 2017-10-10 at the Wayback Machine , p 5. United Nations Human Rights Committee. Accessed 2009-11-01.
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