The following is a matrix of the primary
country subdivisions
Administrative division, administrative unit,Article 3(1). country subdivision, administrative region, subnational entity, constituent state, as well as many similar terms, are generic names for geographical areas into which a particular, ind ...
. It shows which types of entities, e.g. ''
province
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...
'', exist in which countries and at what level.
To keep the matrix as compact as possible and to illustrate distribution, countries are represented by
ISO 3166-1 alpha-2
ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes are two-letter country codes defined in ISO 3166-1, part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), to represent countries, dependent territories, and special areas of ...
country code
Country codes are short alphabetic or numeric geographical codes (geocodes) developed to represent countries and dependent areas, for use in data processing and communications. Several different systems have been developed to do this. The term ...
, followed by the number of units present.
Not included in the matrix are
federal district
A federal district is a type of administrative division of a federation, usually under the direct control of a federal government and organized sometimes with a single municipal body. Federal districts often include capital districts, and they ...
s, capital districts,
interstate compact
The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National Highway System in the United States. Th ...
s, or other
special-purpose district
Special districts (also known as special service districts, special district governments, limited purpose entities, or special-purpose districts) are independent, special-purpose governmental units that exist separately from local governments such ...
s that exist in AR, BR, DO, MX, NG, US.
A country may have more than one entity at the same level; for example, some countries have states ''and'' territories at the first level. On the other hand, some countries may have the same entity occupy in some cases more than one level.
* effective from 2007
{{Terms for types of country subdivisions
Geography-related lists