Administrative division

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Administrative divisions [1] (also administrative units, [2] [3] [4] administrative regions, [5] subnational entities, or a 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]

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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 exact number of 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 not only as a state, but also as a province, a region, a canton , a land, a governorate, an oblast, an emirate or a 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 of administrative divisions

English terms

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

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.

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Urban or rural regions

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

Indigenous

Non-English terms

Due to variations in their use worldwide, consistency in the translation of terms from non-English to English is sometimes difficult to maintain.

See also

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 tier of administration within a sovereign state

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

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

A federation is a political 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">District</span> Administrative division in some countries, managed by a local government

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 sovereignty since powers are divided between the other federated states and the federal government. Federated states are different from sovereign states.

A dependent territory, dependent area, or dependency is a territory that does not possess full political independence or sovereignty as a sovereign state, yet remains politically outside the controlling state's integral area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Administrative geography of the United Kingdom</span> Geographical subdivisions of local government in Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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".

A canton is a type of administrative division of a country. In general, cantons are relatively small in terms of area and population when compared with other administrative divisions such as counties, departments, or provinces. Internationally, the most politically important cantons are the Swiss cantons. As the constituents of the Swiss Confederation, theoretically and historically, they are semi-sovereign states.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Districts of Libya</span> First-level administrative subdivisions of the State of Libya

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 deliniated, 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

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oblasts of Russia</span> Administrative division of Russia

In Russia, the oblasts are 46 administrative territories; they are one type of federal subject, the highest-level administrative division of Russian territory.

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 often used in translation from non-English-speaking administrations.

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

A province is almost always 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> Overview of the political division of the Kingdom of Spain

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

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  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.