Talk:Administrative division

Terminology

Administrative division

from article Administration.

In some contexts, including normal usage in the United States, the term administration also refers to the executive branch under a specific president (or sometimes governor, mayor, or other local executive), for example: the "Bush administration". (Most other English-speaking countries use the analogous term government, as in the "Blair government".) It can also mean an executive branch agency headed by an administrator: these agencies tend to have a regulatory function as well as an administrative function. On occasion, Americans will use the term to refer to the time a given person was president, e.g. "they've been married since the Carter administration."

if administration means government then a division of this administration does not refer to a territorial unit. But to one part of the government. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 02:57, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

The term "Administration" is not used for government departments or agencies, except perhaps in a general sense when the agency acts out a Presidential directive, and the action is seen as the President acting. It is also a leap in logic to say that Administrative division (a global term) is restricted to an unusual interpretation of a US centric use of the word Administration. Legacypac (talk) 16:07, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Country subdivision

What about the name "Country subdivisions"? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 03:00, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

• e.g.: ISO 3166-2 Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions -- Part 2: Country subdivision code

What about learning well-known, widely understood, English language terminology in multiple fields, including Demographics, Geography, and Political Science?

Amazingly enough, we don't make terms out of compound words, so it really doesn't matter that "administration" standing alone is sometimes synonymous with "government" in some other context.... English is a context sensitive language, as some of us have learned in Group theory applied to natural language recognition.

Please stop trying to "standardize" phrases based on inaccurate translation and understanding. Again, the folks that came before you knew what they were talking about, and I'm personally aggrieved that you changed so many "administrative divisions" to "subdivisions" (a completely useless non-equivalency). In English, "subdivisions" are not small "divisions".

Now, I'm having to make hundreds of edits just to list them for cleaning up, and probably hundreds more to actually clean up afterward, taking away from my limited time to do something more interesting.

--William Allen Simpson 03:48, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

• why did you not standardize before? So as to prevent my possible mistakes?
• How about reducing your arrogance towards non english natives and broadening your concept of widely understood? If the folks that came before me "knew" what they talked about, well then why did you move subnational entity to administrative division? (I assume that with your non very much informative claim that people "knew what they talked about" you mean they applied the most accurate term. Pls correct me if you meant it otherwise, because "to know" what one talks about does not mean one applies the most accurate terms.)
• did you ever consider that changing from administrative division to subdivision allowed for inclusion of non-administrative entities such as regions of Brazil? Maybe this broadening can be a benefit in country overview articles in categories? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 05:42, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Vote on deletions of template and related terms

Williams repeatedly deletes the template {{Subnational entity}} from this article that until he moved it on 2006-04-04 to "Administrative division" was named "Subnational entity". He also deletes mentionings of related terms in the intro of this article, country subdivision, subnational entity. Additional he re-states that In contexts of statistical ranking and comparability, the term statoid is sometimes used. Which in that sense is only a term coined by one person, Gwillim Law. [1]

Shall the template and the terms be included in this article or not? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 11:26, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

• include both - is useful to the reader. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 11:26, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - As long as we have an article on statoid, it is clearly notable enough to include in this article. So if you wish that line to be removed, first get statoid deleted.
  • yes 100% agree that it should be included. But look the way William's reversion phrases vs. the version of Tobias. Even if the one of Tobias is not very good, it is at least correct. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 16:05, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
• Do not include the template. It appears wholly redundant to the article. --Golbez 13:50, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Then the article should be maybe rewritten, expanded. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 14:30, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Then rewrite and expand the article. I'd much rather have a full article, than a bad article with a full template. As for William's edits, I'm not going to vote on a content matter at this time. I have never looked at this article before you sent me the link, so I am not equipped to choose one version over another. My vote is purely on the layout/aesthetics of including the template. Maybe later when I've spent more time with an unfamiliar article, I can make a statement about the content. --Golbez 16:06, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
• Include. I fail to understand the reasoning behind opposing votes. The template may need a lot more work, true, but it certainly does serve a useful purpose, and its scope is nothing short of admirable.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) • (yo?); 14:13, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration

See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Administrative divisions.

--William Allen Simpson 04:42, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

State (a national or supra-national entity)

In the compare section I read State (a national or supra-national entity). I don't understand the supra-national. IMHO is a national or sub-national entity (see US: every state is a republic, Switzerland: every canton is also a state). Cate 14:33, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I beg to differ, Cate. Every US state is NOT a 'republic'. Not every state is a "state" either. Some are 'commonwealth', some are 'state', etc. Rarelibra (talk) 21:11, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Dependent territory

In geographical databases, such as GeoNames and those offered by GeoDataSource, the term "administrative division" is used to refer to dependent territories as well as accepted administrative divisions. Therefore, I added the following sentence to the introduction "However, the term "administrative division" often includes dependent territories (for example, in geographical databases)." - The Aviv (talk) 17:20, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I made the minor change "often includes" --> "can include" because we don't have statement giving relavant usage. Good find though. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 08:22, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Challenge

I challenge the claim that the term "administrative division" commonly has the meaning described in this piece. All of the references are to irrelevant articles or other wikipedia articles (which I suspect were created by the same authors). Specifically, as someone else has already stated here, the US Federal Government's administrative divisions are divisions of various government departments and have no direct connection to political divisions such as states, cities, parishes, counties, and townships. Either this is very narrowly focused on some other usage, or is simply wrong. Please provide references to prove that this term is generally used to mean geopolitical subdivisions of a country, or change the lede to indicate that the authors are using the term in a colloquial/parochial way. A preferred source would be a textbook on (college level) geography. Thanks173.189.77.96 (talk) 07:41, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

• 173.189.77.96 I agree that there may be a potential problem with ambiguity. However a search on "administrative division" shows predominant use as with the article's topic (also shown in search in books). I also did a search on the terms presented in the lead "administrative division" OR "administrative unit" OR "administrative entity" OR "country subdivision" OR "geopolitical division"OR "subnational entity" OR "subnational division" with "subnational division" added as per Legacypac's RfC mentioned. I think that "sub-national" may add useful qualification and other options include the use of territorial instead of administrative and unit instead of division. Also of potential note is that the page seems to have been created as Subnational entity. "Sub-national administrative division"? Any other ideas? GregKaye ✍♪ 09:37, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

This is a pretty good article that accurately describes a term widely used to catch a whole bunch of country specific terms. The statement that "the US Federal Government's administrative divisions are divisions of various government departments and have no direct connection to political divisions such as states, cities, parishes, counties, and townships." is just not correct. Legacypac (talk) 16:19, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

RfC

"... Since ISIL is accurately listed at List of active rebel groups can we have consensus that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is not a sovereign state, country, or sub-national entity and should not be listed as such..."

That's a summary of the nominator's premiss in an RfC running at Talk:Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant directly accessed: here.

Contribution would be appreciated and am pinging contributors above: Tobias Conradi, William Allen Simpson, Gwillim Law, Golbez, Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis), Cate, Rarelibra, The Aviv, Chipmunkdavis, Thanks. GregKaye ✍♪ 08:59, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Wow, a blast from the past. Tobias Conradi was first banned from the German wikipedia, then came here and disrupted the English in 2006, then was banned in 2007. Haven't seem some of these others in years. But I'll be glad to take a look.
Having looked, I don't see what this has to do with Administrative divisions, nor defining them. Nothing relevant to see here.
--William Allen Simpson (talk) 18:57, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Administrative divisions in England

Is England considered an administrative division of the United Kingdom? If not, are there administrative divisions of England? power~enwiki (π, ν) 22:56, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

• power~enwiki, yes, England is an administrative division (subdivision) of the United Kingdom. And there are administrative divisions of England too, see subdivisions of England. --Thesmp (talk) 16:05, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

No there is nothing that just covers England. England is administered by the United Kingdom, there's no government of England. It's a constituent country, but not an administrative entity. The closest to it is England and Wales and there has been no administrative area of England in any sense of the term since 1707. Canterbury Tail talk 16:27, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Not all subdivisions governed by a corporation, there are unincorporated areas too, which are subdivisions but does not have there own government. --Thesmp (talk) 17:06, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

User:Canterbury Tail, Such a unit usually has an administrative authority with the power to take administrative or policy decisions for its area. I made a word 'usually' bold. --Thesmp (talk) 17:21, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 18 February 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. (closed by non-admin page mover) Sceptre (talk) 14:35, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

---

Administrative division → Country subdivision – Better title, because not all scholars agree that the federated states can be named administrative divisions, and the article discuss them too. See also discussion above about England, which is a subdivision of the UK but not an administrative entity (there is no a Devolved English parliament or so). Heanor (talk) 10:00, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

• Support, maybe even merge with Territory. --Thesmp (talk) 10:13, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support. It is a more descriptive term as well as being more technically accurate. Rreagan007 (talk) 16:22, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
• Comment Just a warning to proceed with caution. I don't have time to read through all of the relevant articles and discussions at the moment, but e.g. States and union territories of India mentions administrative divisions as a lower unit than a district. You will need to look at all of the incoming links to this article and consider carefully what it covers. Also, "territory" has many meanings, not always a country subdivision, so I would not support merging this. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 03:56, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose I agree that "administrative division" is awkward, but "Country subdivision" is even more awkward. I don't think it is more descriptive or in common use. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 02:08, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose Not all political entities are countries. James Ker-Lindsay (talk) 03:39, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose this article deals with other types of divisions such as lower ones in the "list" part such as hundreds. Instead perhaps split? Crouch, Swale (talk) 10:00, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• Move to political subdivision or to political division or to subnational entity. The case for England as a subdivision but not an administrative one stands. Showiecz (talk) 10:47, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose I agree with both 力 and James Ker-Lindsay here. The word "Country" is problematic. "State" is generally a more precise term to use for this, but the use of 'state' to refer to country tends to confuse US English speakers. The current title works ok, but I do think Showiecz's first suggestion makes sense too. - Wiz9999 (talk) 05:23, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:43, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.