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Administrative division

Administrative divisions are divisions of a political division. In other words, they are designated portions of a country. They are also called subnational entities. They are each granted a certain degree of autonomy, and are required to manage themselves through their own local governments. Countries are divided up into these smaller units to make managing their land and the affairs of their people easier. For example, a country may be divided into provinces, which in turn are divided into counties, which in turn may be divided in whole or in part into municipalities. These are only a few of the names given to administrative subdivisions; more examples are provided below.

Administrative divisions are a type of country subdivision, and can overlap with the other types. The other types of country subdivision generally don't have governments.

Administrative divisions are conceptually separate from dependent areas, in that the former are included in the core or mainland of the respective state.

Examples of administrative divisions

English terms

• Area
• Urban
  • Borough
  • Burgh
  • City
  • Town
  • Township
  • Village
• County
• Constituency - usually refers to an electoral division (which is not an administrative division), but in Namibia and in Canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland, "constituency" means "administrative division".
• Despotate (not subnational)
• District
• Division (country subdivision)
• Duchy (partial subnational)
• Empire (not subnational)
• Kingdom
• Local council
• Municipality
  • rural municipality
  • regional municipality
  • regional county municipality
• Parish
• Prefecture
• Principality (partial subnational)
• Province
• Region
• Republic (partial subnational)
• Indigenous:
  • Tribe
  • Indian reservation
  • Indian reserve
  • Band
• State (sub-national)
• Territory

Native terms

See: List of terms for administrative divisions

Translation into English sometimes is difficult.

Compare

• State, a national or supra-national division.
• Country, a national or supra-national division.
• Empire, a supra-national division.

See also

• Political division
• ISO 3166-2 Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions — Part 2
• List of terms for administrative divisions
• List of etymologies of country subdivision names
• List of country subdivisions by population
• List of the largest administrative divisions by area
• Lists of informal regions, i.e. regions not identified or used as country subdivisions.
• Table of administrative country subdivisions by country
• List of administrative division name changes

External links

• United Nations' Second Administrative Level Boundaries (SALB) dataset
• "Statoids" - an international convention with standard two-letter, multi-level summaries (e.g. GH.AH.AE represents Adansi East in the Accra Home region in Ghana)