''This article is about political regions. See
geologic province for geological meanings.''
Province is a name for a
secondary level of government in most countries. In some countries an alternative term is used, such as
state (in
Australia and the
United States),
prefecture (in
Japan), or
region (in
France and
Italy; the latter uses
provincia as a tertiary form of government, akin to a
county). During the time of the
British Empire, various colonies had the title of
Province such as the
Province of Canada and
Province of South Australia. In Germany and Austria, the same sense of historical and cultural unity on a less-than-national scale is expressed as
Land, the common name for
states of Germany and
states of Austria.
In many
federations (particularly those that are in fact
confederations), the province or state is not clearly subordinate to the national or "central" government. Rather, it is considered to be sovereign in regard to its particular set of constitutional functions. The central and provincial governmental functions, or areas of jurisdiction, are identified in a constitution. Those that are not specifically identified in the constitution are called "residual powers". These residual powers lie at the provincial (or state) level in a decentralised federal system (such as the United States and Australia) whereas in a centralised federal system they are retained at the federal level (as in Canada). Nevertheless, some of the enumerated powers can also be very significant. For example,
Canadian provinces are sovereign in regard to such important matters as law and order, property, civil rights, education, social welfare, medical services and even taxation.
The evolution of federations has created an inevitable tug-of-war between concepts of federal supremacy versus "states' rights". The historic division of responsibility in federal constitutions is inevitably subject to multiple overlaps. For example, when central governments, responsible for "foreign affairs", enter into international agreements in areas where the state or province is sovereign, such as the environment or health standards, agreements made at the national level can create juridictional overlap and conflicting laws. This overlap creates the potential for internal disputes that lead to constitutional amendments and judicial decisions that significantly change the balance of powers.
The word was introduced by the
Romans, who divided their empire into
provinciae. The word is thought to have originated from the
Latin word
provincia (zone of influence), which is turn is thought to have derived from
pro ("in front") and
vincia ("linked").
In
France, the expression
en province still tends to mean "outside of the region of
Paris". Prior to the
French Revolution, the country consisted of the region of
Ile-de-France – the personal fiefdom of the king – and the
royal provinces, which were once governed by their own feudal lords. Today, the expression is sometimes replaced with
en région, as that term is now officially used for the secondary level of government.
The same expression is used in
Peru, where
en provincias means "outside of the city of
Lima", although Lima itself is located in a province. Provinces are a tertiary unit of government in Peru, as the country is divided into twenty-five regions, which are then subdivided into 194 provinces.
In Arab countries the secondary level of government, called a
muhfazah, is usually translated as a
governorate. This term is also used for the historic Russian
guberniyas. Compare
oblast.
In Poland, the equivalent of province is
województwo, often translated as voivodeship.
Current
Subdivisions called or translated into "province".
The most populous province is
Henan, China, pop. 93,000,000. Also very populous are several other Chinese provinces, as well as
Punjab,
Pakistan, pop. 85,000,000.
The largest provinces by area are
Xinjiang, China (1,600,000 sq. km) and
Quebec,
Canada (1,500,000 sq. km).
There are also
provinces in New Zealand, but the country is not seen as a "federal" country. However, the provinces do have a few duties like collecting rates and each province has its own Health Board and District Prisons Board.
Governorates
The term
governorate is widely used in arab countries to describe an administrative unit; it translates the Arabic word
muhafazah. Some governorates combine more than one wilaya; others closely follow traditional boundaries inherited from the
Ottoman Empire's vilayet system.
Historical provinces
Ancient and medieval/feudal provinces
- pharaonic : see nome (Egypt)
- in Achaemenid Persia (and probably before in Media), again after conquest and further extension by Alexander the Great, and in various (mainly the larger) hellenistic successor states : see satrapy
- Provinces of the Roman empire
- in (later) Byzantium : see exarchate, theme
- the gau (a county) in the Frankish (Carolingian) re-founded Holy Roman Empire
- the emirate? in the (Arab-ruled) caliphate and subsequent sultanates
- the subah in the Indian mughal empire
Modern provinces
In historical terms,
Fernand Braudel has depicted the European provinces—built up of numerous small regions called by the French
pays or by the Swiss cantons, each with a local cultural identity and focused upon a market town—as the political unit of optimum size in pre-industrial Early Modern Europe and asks, "was the province not its inhabitants' true
fatherland?" (''The Perspective of the World'' 1984, p. 284) Even centrally organized France, an early
nation-state, could collapse into autonomous provincial worlds under pressure, such as the sustained crisis of the Wars of Religion, 1562—1598.
For 19th and 20th-century historians, "centralized government" had been taken as a symptom or modernity and political maturity in the rise of Europe. Then, in the late 20th century, as a
European Union drew the
nation-states closer together, centripetal forces seemed to be moving towards a more flexible system composed of more localized, provincial governing entities under the European umbrella.
Spain after Franco is a
State of Autonomies, formally unitary, but in fact functioning as a federation of
Autonomous Communities, each one with different powers. (see
Politics of Spain). While
Serbia, the rump of the former Yugoslavia, fought the separatists in the province of
Kosovo, at the same time the UK, under the political principle of "
devolution" established local parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (1998). Strong local nationalisms surfaced or developed in
Cornwall,
Languedoc,
Catalonia,
Lombardy,
Corsica and
Flanders, and east of Europe in Abkhasia,
Chechnya and
Kurdistan.
In the
Habsburg territories, the traditional provinces are partly expressed in the
Länder of 19th-century
Austria-Hungary.
The
Ottoman Empire's provinces had various types of governors (gnerally a
pasha), but mostly styled
vali, hence the predominant term
vilayet, generally subdivided (often in beyliks), sometimes grouped under a governor-general (styled beglerbeg).
Category:Subnational entities
ca:Província
es:Provincia
fr:Province
fy:Provinsje
ko:도 (행정 구역)
id:Provinsi
it:Provincia
la:Provincia
nl:Provincie
ja:省
nb:Provins
pl:Prowincja
su:Propinsi
sv:Provins
th:จังหวัด
zh:省