administrative division
Official named areas a municipality maintains, without a council of their own.
An administrative division is a division whose areas are officially named and bounded by the municipality but carry no elected body. The city keeps the boundaries, uses the names in its own documents, and assigns addresses, services or planning to them.
The names are normally the historic ones residents already use, which is why this division tends to be the one people speak in. Its boundaries follow settlement history rather than a counting rule, and they change rarely.
A political division differs by having a council or representative for each area. A statistical division differs by existing to be counted, and its boundaries follow roads and railways instead of the grown edges of a quarter.
Related definitions
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cadastral division
Land-register areas holding the parcels, usually the pre-merger village boundaries. -
ecclesiastical division
Parishes and church districts, drawn by a religious body for its own congregations. -
electoral division
Constituencies drawn to elect someone to a body above, redrawn as population shifts. -
judicial division
Areas assigning a place to the court competent for it, so a matter is heard in the right one. -
military division
Areas under military authority, such as a garrison, training ground or closed zone. -
natural division
Areas set by the terrain itself, such as a valley, a basin, a range or an island group. -
planning division
Areas a plan or program applies to, lasting only as long as the program does. -
political division
Areas with an elected council or representative of their own, set by the municipality. -
postal division
Delivery areas of a postal operator, cut for routes rather than for places. -
protected division
Conservation areas where what may be done with the land is restricted by law. -
school division
Catchment areas assigning an address to the school it is entitled to attend. -
service division
Supply and response areas of a utility or emergency service, cut by network and driving time. -
statistical division
Areas cut for counting, kept stable over time, often named after the quarter they contain. -
tenure division
Areas a use right runs over, such as a hunting, forestry or fishing ground. -
traditional division
Territories held under customary law, recognized by those who live under it. -
vernacular division
Names people use for parts of a place, with edges nobody has ever fixed by an authority.