District

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Districts are a form of local government in several countries.

Table of contents

1 China
2 England
3 Germany
4 United States
5 Thailand
6 Japan
7 Nauru
8 Portugal
9 See also

China

A district (市辖区, pinyin: shÃÂÃÂ¬ xiÃÂÃÂ¡ qū) is a subdivision of a city such as cities with equal status to a province, sub-provincial cities and prefecture-level cities, and a district is county level status in China. see Districts of China

Districts are the most recognisable form of local government in large parts of England. For those areas which retain two-tier local government, districts usually form the lower tier of that arrangement, with counties forming the upper tier. Districts tend to have responsibility for a number of areas including:

tax collection (Council Tax & Non-Domestic Rates)
Leisure Services
Refuse collection
Housing
Planning
Arts & Entertainment
Environmental Health

Each district raises taxes from residents on behalf of itself, and the upper tier authority through the Council Tax. It also raises income from business through the Non-Domestic Rates system, which is co-ordinated nationally.

Germany

A district ("Landkreis") is a subdivision of a Regierungsbezirk, an administrative region (or, in those statess that do not contain administrative regions, of a state). See also: list of German districts.

United States

A constituency with a representative in Congress is a congressional district; a constituency with a representative in a state legislature is a legislative district; the territory over which a federal court has jurisdiction is a federal judicial district. Various special-purpose districts exist. One would seldom use the word district without one of these qualifiers unless the context makes clear which is intended. Each state is divided up into a number of congressional districts, ranging from one to 53; the exact number is based on population. Only voters within each district are allowed to vote in the election for the member of the House from that district. Overall, there are 435 districts in the United States; each has roughly 630,000 people, with some variance.

The District of Columbia is the only part of the United States proper (i.e., excluding territories) that is not a located within any of the fifty states.

Districts (Portuguese: distritos) are administrative divisions of Portugal. They do not have an elected government; they are governed by a "civil governor" appointed by the central government. With the regionalization that is under way, districts will be phased out. See Districts of Portugal.