service division
Supply and response areas of a utility or emergency service, cut by network and driving time.
A service division is a division whose areas state who supplies or responds at a given address: an electricity, water or waste operator, an ambulance or fire service, a hospital catchment. The operator or the authority commissioning it sets the boundaries.
The network or the response time governs the cut, so the boundary follows pipes, cables and driving distance rather than settlement edges, and it is redrawn when the network or the depot changes. Each service divides the ground on its own terms, so the areas of different services rarely coincide.
An administrative division is the municipality's own subdivision of itself. A service area exists to route a supply or a response, and it regularly crosses municipal boundaries to do it.
Related definitions
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administrative division
Official named areas a municipality maintains, without a council of their own. -
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. -
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.