Administrative divisions 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.
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, in his stead, a viscount (vicomte). 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.
Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of governance or public administration within a particular sovereign state.
A unitary authority is a local authority responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are usually performed by a higher level of sub-national government or the national government.
An arrondissement is any of various administrative divisions of France, Belgium, Haiti, certain other Francophone countries, as well as the Netherlands.
A prefecture is an administrative jurisdiction traditionally governed by an appointed prefect. This can be a regional or local government subdivision in various countries, or a subdivision in certain international church structures. During the antiquity, it was the name of a type of Roman district. In the 21st century, the term prefecture is used for the modern first-level subdivisions of the Central African Republic, Japan, and Morocco.
Belgium is a federal state comprising three communities and three regions that are based on four language areas. For each of these subdivision types, the subdivisions together make up the entire country; in other words, the types overlap.
Belgium comprises 581 municipalities, 300 of them grouped into five provinces in Flanders and 262 others in five provinces in Wallonia, while the remaining 19 are in the Brussels Capital Region, which is not divided in provinces. In most cases, the municipalities are the smallest administrative subdivisions of Belgium, but in municipalities with more than 100,000 inhabitants, on the initiative of the local council, sub-municipal administrative entities with elected councils may be created. As such, only Antwerp, having over 500,000 inhabitants, became subdivided into nine districts. The Belgian arrondissements, an administrative level between province and municipality, or the lowest judicial level, are in English sometimes called districts as well.
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.
Russia is divided into several types and levels of subdivisions.
An oblast is a type of administrative division in Bulgaria and several post-Soviet states, including Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Historically, it was used in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. The term oblast is often translated into English as 'region' or 'province'. In some countries, oblasts are also known by cognates of the Russian term.
An okrug is a type of administrative division in some Slavic-speaking states. The word okrug is a loanword in English, alternatively translated as area, district, county, or region.
The German term Bezirk translated as "district" can refer to the following types of administrative divisions:
A raion is a type of administrative unit of several post-Soviet states. The term is used for both a type of subnational entity and a division of a city. The word is from the French rayon, and is commonly translated as 'district' in English.
An administrative centre is a seat of regional administration or local government, or a county town, or the place where the central administration of a commune, is located.
A Stadtbezirk is an administrative division in Germany, which is part of a larger city. It is translated as "borough". In Germany, Stadtbezirke usually only exist in a metropolis with more than 150,000 inhabitants. For example, Wattenscheid, which was a town in its own right until 1974, is now a Stadtbezirk within the city of Bochum in the Ruhr area of North Rhine-Westphalia. In Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate, the term Ortsbezirk is also used for districts of smaller cities.
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".
Sevastopol is a city on the Black Sea, located in the southwest of the Crimean Peninsula—a territory disputed between Russia and Ukraine as a result of the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation. It has been under the de facto Russian control since March 2014, when it was incorporated into Russia as one of its federal subjects, with a status of a federal city. Being a disputed territory, Sevastopol has two sets of laws governing how its administrative and municipal divisions are set up. Under both Ukrainian and Russian laws, the city is administratively divided into four districts.
A district (raion) is an administrative and municipal division of a federal subject of Russia.
