Administrative division

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]

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).

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
World political divisions
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
Area Canton
Autonomous community County
Banat Community
Banner Constituency
Barangay Crown Dependency
Barony Department
Capital city District
 Division Parish
Duchy Prefecture
Federal subjects Principality
Governorate Province
Hundred Public body
Kampong Regency
Kingdom Region
Legal entity Republic
Local council Riding
Municipality State
Regional Special administrative region
Regional county Territory
Rural Theme
Oblast Voivodeship

Urban or rural regions

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

Borough, burgh or "boro"

City
Hamlet
Shire
Town
Township
Village
Ward

Indigenous
Tribe
Indian reservation
Indian reserve
Band
Ranchería

See also
GADM, a high-resolution database of country administrative areas.
ISO 3166-2, specifically Codes for the representation of names of countries and their
subdivisions — Part 2.
List of administrative division name changes
List of etymologies of administrative divisions
 List of administrative divisions by country

References
1. "Administrative divisions - The World Factbook" (https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/fiel
d/administrative-divisions). Central Intelligence Agency. Archived (https://web.archive.org/we
b/20210325023220/https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/administrative-divisions)
from the original on 2021-03-25. Retrieved 2021-03-26.
2. "General maps | Geospatial, location information for a better world" (https://www.un.org/geo
spatial/mapsgeo/generalmaps). United Nations. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/2021
0410203627/https://www.un.org/geospatial/mapsgeo/generalmaps) from the original on
2021-04-10. Retrieved 2021-03-26.
3. "02003R1059-20191113" (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2003/1059). EUR-Lex. Article
3(1). Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20210521123340/https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/re
g/2003/1059) from the original on 2021-05-21. Retrieved 2021-03-25.
4. "Global Administrative Unit Layers (GAUL)" (https://web.archive.org/web/20150924150111/h
ttp://www.fao.org/geonetwork/srv/en/metadata.show?id=12691&currTab=simple).
GeoNetwork. FAO. Archived from the original (http://www.fao.org/geonetwork/srv/en/metada
ta.show?id=12691&currTab=simple) on 24 September 2015.
5. "OECD Glossary of Statistical Terms - Administrative regions Definition" (https://web.archive.
org/web/20210827100049/https://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=6226). OECD
Statistics. August 26, 2004. Archived from the original (https://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.
asp?ID=6226) on 2021-08-27. Retrieved 2021-08-27.
6. "Second Administrative Level Boundaries | Geospatial Information Section & Statistics
Division | United Nations" (https://web.archive.org/web/20210404034644/https://www.unsal
b.org/). unsalb.org. Archived from the original (https://www.unsalb.org/) on 2021-04-04.
Retrieved 2021-03-26.
7. Bird, Richard M (2009). "Overview: Constituent units risk lengthy dependency on federal
aid" (https://web.archive.org/web/20101218004657/http://www.forumfed.org/en/products/ma
gazine/vol8_num2/overview-dependency.php). Forum of Federations. Archived from the
original (http://www.forumfed.org/en/products/magazine/vol8_num2/overview-dependency.p
hp) 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 (https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/89503/California) Archived (https://w
eb.archive.org/web/20150504181415/http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/89503/Cal
ifornia) 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" (https://netfile
s.uiuc.edu/fesnic/fspub/6_7_Stepan_1999_Federalism_J_of_Dem.pdf) (PDF), Journal of
Democracy, 10 (4): 19–34, doi:10.1353/jod.1999.0072 (https://doi.org/10.1353%2Fjod.1999.
0072), S2CID 201765897 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:201765897)
11. International Covenant On Civil And Political Rights (http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/89858
6b1dc7b4043c1256a450044f331/8be9009ac37f2d75c1256f17004b6e68/$FILE/G0443118.d
oc) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20171010055933/http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.ns
f/898586b1dc7b4043c1256a450044f331/8be9009ac37f2d75c1256f17004b6e68/$FILE/G04
43118.doc) 2017-10-10 at the Wayback Machine, p 5. United Nations Human Rights
Committee. Accessed 2009-11-01.

External links
 SALB (http://www.unsalb.org) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20140115100427/http://
www.unsalb.org/) 2014-01-15 at the Wayback Machine Second Administrative Level
Boundaries (SALB) programme of the United Nations.
Statoids (http://www.statoids.com), an international convention with standardized two-letter-
based multi-level summaries of administrative divisions worldwide (e.g. GH.AH.AS (http://w
ww.statoids.com/ygh.html) represents Adansi South (AE) in the Accra Home (AH) region of
Ghana (GH)).

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