The term ''district'', in the context of Indonesia, refers to the third-level administrative subdivision, below regency or

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

. The local term ' is used in the majority of Indonesian areas, except in Papua, West Papua, and the Special Region of Yogyakarta. The term ' is used in Papua and West Papua. In the Special Region of Yogyakarta, the term ''kapanewon'' is used for districts within the regencies, while the term ' is used for districts within Yogyakarta, the province's only city. According to

Statistics Indonesia Statistics Indonesia ( id, Badan Pusat Statistik, BPS, ), is a non-departmental government institute of Indonesia that is responsible for conducting statistical surveys. Its main customer is the government, but statistical data is also availabl ...

, there are a total of 7,252 districts in Indonesia as at 2019, subdivided into 83,820 administrative villages (rural ' and urban '). During the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...

and early republic period, the term ''district'' referred to ''kewedanan'', a subdivision of regency, while ' was translated as ''subdistrict'' ( nl, onderdistrict). Following the abolition of ''kewedanan'', the term ''district'' began to be associated with ' which has since been directly administered by regency. Mainstream media such as '' The Jakarta Post'', ', and '' Tempo'' use "district" to refer to '; however machine translation services like Google Translate often incorrectly use "district" to refer to regencies instead.

Definition

District in Indonesia is the third-level administrative subdivision, below regency or city (second-level) and province (first-level). According to the Act Number 23 of 2014, district is formed by the government of regency or city in order to improve the coordination of governance, public services, and empowerment of urban/rural villages. District head is a career bureaucrat position directly appointed by regent or mayor. The local district term ' is used in the majority of Indonesian areas, with ' being the head. During the

and early republic period, the term ''district'' referred to ''kewedanan'', a subdivision of a regency. ''Kewedanan'' itself was divided into ', which was translated as ''subdistrict'' ( nl, onderdistrict). Following the abolition of ''kewedanan'', the term ''district'' began to be associated with ' which has since been directly administered by regency. In

English-language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

dictionary, ''

subdistrict A subdistrict or sub-district is an administrative division that is generally smaller than a district. Equivalents * Administrative posts of East Timor, formerly Portuguese-language * Kelurahan, in Indonesia * Mukim, a township in Brunei, In ...

'' means "a division or subdivision of a district", hence the translation of ' as ''subdistrict'' is no longer precise since the absence of ''kewedanan'' as ''district''. The 1982 publication of

translated ' as ''district''. With the release of the Act Number 21 of 2001 on the Special Autonomous of Papua Province, the term ' was used instead of ' in the entire Western New Guinea ( Papua and West Papua). The difference between the two is merely the naming, with ''kepala distrik'' being the district head. It was later followed in 2019 by another autonomous province, the Special Region of Yogyakarta, where ' was replaced with ''kapanewon'' and '. Sultan Hamengkubuwono X, the region's governor and the monarch of Yogyakarta Sultanate, issued Gubernatorial Decree Number 25 of 2019, which restored the old naming convention for the region's subdivisions. ''Kapanewon ''(a subdivision of regency) is headed by a ''panewu'', while ' (a subdivision of city), is headed by a ''mantri pamong praja''.

List of districts

References

External links

* {{Districts of Indonesia Districts, Indonesia

Districts A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions o ...