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Department (administrative division)

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(Redirected from Department (country subdivision)) Administrative or political division in some countries For other uses, see Department (disambiguation).
Map showing countries in the world that have departments as administrative divisions.  As first level   As second level

A department (French: département, Spanish: departamento) is an administrative or political division in several countries. Departments are the first-level divisions of 11 countries, nine in the Americas and two in Africa. An additional 10 countries use departments as second-level divisions, eight in Africa, and one each in the Americas and Europe.

As a territorial entity, "department" was first used by the French Revolutionary governments, apparently to emphasize that each territory was simply an administrative sub-division of the united sovereign nation. (The term "department", in other contexts, means an administrative sub-division of a larger organization.) This attempt to de-emphasize local political identity contrasts strongly with countries divided into "states" (implying local sovereignty).

The division of France into departments was a project particularly identified with the French revolutionary leader the Abbé Sieyès, although it had already been frequently discussed and written about by many politicians and thinkers. The earliest known suggestion of it is from 1764 in the writings of d'Argenson.

Today, departments may exist either with or without a representative assembly and executive head depending upon the countries' constitutional and administrative structure.

Countries using departments

*All provinces except Buenos Aires province.

Former countries using departments

Notes

  1. Replaced by regions in 2002.
  2. Before Alaska became a U.S. state, it was designated as the "Department of Alaska".

References

  1. Gwillim Law (20 May 2015). Administrative Subdivisions of Countries: A Comprehensive World Reference, 1900 through 1998. McFarland. ISBN 978-1-4766-0447-3.

External links

See also

French terms for administrative divisions
Designations for types of administrative division
English terms
Common English terms
Area
Borough
CantonHalf-canton
Capital
City
Community
County
Country
Department
District
Division
Indian reserve/reservation
Municipality
Prefecture
Province
Region
State
Territory
Town
Township
Unit
Zone
Other English terms
Current
Historical
Non-English terms or loanwords
Current
Historical
Used by ten or more countries or having derived terms. Historical derivations in italics.
See also
Autonomous administration
Census division
Electoral district
List of administrative divisions by country
Slavic administrative divisions


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