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. In 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.
The administrative divisions of China have consisted of several levels since 1412, due to China's large population and geographical area. The constitution of China provides for three levels of government. However in practice, there are five levels of local government; the provincial, prefecture, county, township, and village.
A circuit was a historical political division of China and is a historical and modern administrative unit in Japan. The primary level of administrative division of Korea under the Joseon and in modern North and South Korea employs the same Chinese character as the Chinese and Japanese divisions but, because of its relatively greater importance, is usually translated as province instead.
A commandery was a historical administrative division of China that was in use from the Eastern Zhou until the early Tang dynasty. Several neighboring countries adopted Chinese commanderies as the basis for their own administrative divisions.
Greater administrative regions or greater administrative areas were top-level administrative divisions of the Communist-held Liberated Zone in Northern China and later the nascent People's Republic of China that directly governed provinces and municipalities. These were the largest-ever political divisions of China and were controlled by the Central People's Government. They were dissolved between June and November 1954.
Fuling District is a district in central Chongqing, China. As the second largest city in Chongqing, the area is known for zha cai, a hot pickled mustard tuber, as well as serving as the location of former U.S. Peace Corps teacher Peter Hessler's best-selling memoir River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze.
A league is an prefecture-level administrative unit of the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia in the People's Republic of China.
Zhou were historical administrative and political divisions of China. Formally established during the Han dynasty, zhou existed continuously for over 2000 years until the 1912 establishment of the Republic of China. Zhou were also once used in Korea, Vietnam and Japan.
Jishishan Bonan, Dongxiang and Salar Autonomous County is an autonomous county of Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, in Gansu province, China. It is located in the mostly mountainous area to the south of the Yellow River, near Gansu's border with Qinghai province. The total population was 239,390 in 2020; 64.9% were of an ethnic minority. The county's titular ethnic groups are the Bonan, Dongxiang, and Salar peoples. There are 21,400 Bonan people living in Jishishan, which accounts for 95% of all Bonan in China. The Bonan are known for their cultivation of Sichuan peppers and walnuts. Jishishan's local cuisine includes Bonan-style maisui baozi and lamb meat.
Lantian County is a county under the administration of Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi province, China. It is the easternmost and second-most spacious of the 13 county-level divisions of Xi'an. The county borders the prefecture-level cities of Weinan to the northeast and Shangluo to the southeast, Lintong District to the north, Chang'an District to the west, and Baqiao District to the northwest.
Jingzhou Miao and Dong Autonomous County, usually referred to as Jingzhou County or abbreviated just as Jingzhou, is an autonomous county of Miao and Dong peoples in Hunan Province, China, the county is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Huaihua. It was known as "Jing County", renamed to the present name on February 19, 1987.
A county, constitutionally known as a hsien, is a de jure second-level administrative division unit in the Republic of China (Taiwan). Under the administrative structure of Taiwan, it is with the same level of a provincial city.
Qianjiang District, formerly Qianjiang Tujia and Miao Autonomous County, is a district, in the southeastern part of Chongqing, China, bordering Hubei province to the east and northeast. While it is governed as a district, in practice Qianjiang is its own city proper far removed from the urban centre of Chongqing. Qianjiang is nicknamed "The Throat of Sichuan and Hubei" (川鄂咽喉) because it sits on the intersection of Sichuan-Hubei and Sichuan-Hunan Roads.
Counties (县) are found in the third level of the administrative hierarchy in provinces and autonomous regions and the second level in municipalities and Hainan, a level that is known as "county level" and also contains autonomous counties, county-level cities, banners, autonomous banners and city districts. There are 1,355 counties in mainland China out of a total of 2,851 county-level divisions.
Fu is a traditional administrative division of Chinese origin used in the East Asian cultural sphere, translated variously as commandery, prefecture, urban prefecture, or city. They were first instituted as a regular form of administrative division of China's Tang Empire, but were later adopted in Vietnam, Japan and Korea. At present, only two fu still remain: the prefectures of Kyoto and Osaka in Japan.
The history of the administrative divisions of China after 1949 refers to the administrative divisions under the People's Republic of China. In 1949, the communist forces initially held scattered fragments of China at the start of the Chinese Civil War. By late 1949, they controlled the majority of mainland China, forcing the Republic of China government to relocate to Taiwan.
The Tang dynasty of China administered territory using a hierarchical system of three descending divisions: circuits, prefectures, and counties. Prefectures have been called jùn (郡) as well as zhōu (州) interchangeably throughout history, leading to cases of confusion, but in reality their political status was the same. The prefectures were furthered classified as either Upper Prefectures, Middle Prefectures, or Lower Prefectures depending on population. An Upper Prefecture consisted of 40, 000 households and above, a Middle Prefecture 20, 000 households and above, and a Lower Prefecture anything below 20, 000 households. Some prefectures were further categorized as bulwark prefectures, grand prefectures, renowned prefectures, or key prefectures for strategic purposes. A superior prefecture was called a fu (府).
The Yuan dynasty was a Mongol-led imperial Chinese dynasty. During its existence, its territory was divided into the Central Region (腹裏) governed by the Central Secretariat and places under control of various provinces (行省) or Branch Secretariats (行中書省), as well as the region under the Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs. In addition, the Yuan emperors held nominal suzerainty over the western Mongol khanates, but in reality none of them were governed by the Yuan dynasty due to the division of the Mongol Empire.
Jiangnan, formerly romanized as Kiangnan, was a historical province of the early Qing dynasty of China. Its capital was Jiangning, from which it is sometimes known as Nanjing or Nanking Province. Established in 1645 during the Qing conquest of Ming, it administered the area of the earlier Ming province of Nanzhili, reaching from north of the Huai River—at the time the course of the Yellow River—to south of the Yangtze River in East China. Its territory was later divided into the separate provinces of Jiangsu and Anhui during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor (1736–1795), although the exact timing is disputed, with Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville's map of 1734 showing the province still extant as "Kiang-nan". The earliest that the province's partition could have happened was 1667. Under the Republic and People's Republic of China, an area of Jiangsu also became the provincial-level municipality of Shanghai.
The People's Republic of China (PRC) is divided into 2,854 county-level divisions which rank below prefectures/provinces and above townships as the third-level administrative division in the country. Of these, 2,842 are located in territory controlled by the PRC, while 172 are located in land controlled by the Republic of China (ROC).
