Khum

Administrative divisions of Cambodia have several levels. Cambodia is divided into 24 provinces (''Khaet''; km, ខេត្ត, ) and the special administrative unit Phnom Penh. Though a different administrative unit, Phnom Penh is at province level, so ''de facto'' Cambodia has 25 provinces and municipalities.

Each province is divided into districts (''Srok''/''Khan''; , /) - there are 159 districts throughout the country’s provinces, and 12 are in Phnom Penh. Each province has one capital district (changed to " city/town", ''krong''; , ), e.g. for Siem Reap, it's ''Srok Siem Reap''. The exceptions are the provinces of Banteay Meanchey, Kandal, Mondulkiri, Oddar Meanchey, Preah Vihear and Ratanakiri, where the province and the capital district does not match.

A district of a province, which is called ''Srok'' (, ), is divided into " communes" (''khum''; , ). A commune is further divided into "villages" (, ).

In Phnom Penh the districts are called ''khan'' (, ), and their subdivisions ''sangkat'' (, ) which are smaller in the other provinces.

''Sangkat'' are further subdivided into ''phum'', which are usually translated as villages, though they do not necessarily cover one single settlement.

Administrative units

Officially, Cambodia is divided into 5 administrative tiers, with different types of administrative unit on each tier:

Local administration

In addition to these subdivisions, there are also cities and towns, which take over some of the responsibilities of the districts and communes on the area covered by the municipality. These all have an elected board and an elected mayor.

There are three different levels of municipalities ( km, ក្រុង):
* krong (city): More than 50,000 citizens
* krong (town): More than 10,000 citizens - or a provincial capital

In addition to the population numbers, the municipalities need to have enough tax revenues for the administration to be able to execute the offices of administrations.

Towns and cities are divided into ''sangkat'' (communes), which are equivalent to ''khum'' of rural areas.

For areas which do not reach the mandatory conditions, they exist another lower level of local administration. These usually cover a complete subdistrict (''Khum''), but may also cover more than one subdistrict or share a subdistrict with a municipality.

Informal subdivisions

Kandal Province is informally included as part of Phnom Penh, as the urban sprawl of the capital has already spread into these areas.

There are several definitions of regions in Cambodia.

Cambodia Town, Long Beach, California, is sometimes jokingly referred to as the "25th province" of Cambodia, because of the high population of Cambodian Americans that live there.

See also

*List of districts in Cambodia
*Communes of Cambodia
*Provinces of Cambodia
*List of cities in Cambodia
* ISO 3166-2:KH

References

External links

Statoid site

{{Cambodia topics

Cambodia