Regional

Region can be used to mean either:

• any more or less well-defined geographical area of a country or continent, defined by geography, culture or history
• in political geography, an administrative subdivision of a country or of the European Union. It is a common English translation of the Russian and Ukrainian administrative subdivision область (oblast) or the Bulgarian counterpart област.

It is worth noting that regions are found in the minds of humans and so regions can be of any size and that each region is unique in its own way.

The term also has a more specific use in relation to DVDs; see also regional lockout. For the place-name Region in the works of JRR Tolkien, see Region (Middle-earth).

Administrative regions

The word "region" is taken from the Latin regio, and a number of countries have borrowed the term as the formal name for a type of subnational entity (eg, the región, used in Chile). In English, the word is also used as the conventional translation for equivalent terms in other languages (eg, the область (oblast'), used in Russia alongside with a broader term регион).

Countries using administrative regions

The following countries use the term "region" (or its cognate) as the name of a type of subnational entity:

• Belgium (in French, région; in German, Region; the term gewest is used in Dutch)
• Chile (región)
• Congo (région)
• Côte d'Ivoire (région)
• Denmark (effective from 2007)
• France (région)
• Ghana
• Hungary (régió)
• Italy (regione)
• Mali (région)
• Namibia
• New Zealand
• Peru (región)
• Tanzania
• Togo (région)

The Canadian province of Québec also uses the "administrative region" (région administrative).

Prior to 1996, Scotland was also divided into regions.

The government of the Philippines uses the region (in Filipino, rehiyon) when it's necessary to group provinces, the primary administrative subdivision of the country. this is also the case in Brazil which groups its primary administrative divisions (estados; "states") into grandes regiões (≈"greater regions") for statistical purposes, while Russia uses экономические районы ("economic regions") in a similar way.

The government of Singapore makes use of regions for its own administrative purposes. Similarly, the British government also makes limited use of regions for England.

The following countries use an administrative subdivision conventionally referred to as a region in English:

• Bulgaria, which uses the област (oblast).
• Russia, which uses the область (oblast').
• Ukraine, which uses the область (oblast').

China has five 自治区 (zìzhìqū) and two 特別行政區 (or 特别行政区; tèbiéxíngzhèngqū) which are conventionally translated as "autonomous region" and "special administrative region", respectively.

Geographical regions

A region can also be used for a geographical area; with this usage, there is an implied distinctiveness about the area that defines it. Such a distinction is often made on the basis of a historical, political, or cultural cohesiveness that separates the region from its neighbours.

Geographical regions can be found within a country (eg, the Midlands, in England), or transnationally (eg, the Middle-East).

Examples of geographical regions

• Geographical regions in Serbia and Montenegro
• Historical regions of Central Europe
• Historical regions of the Balkan Peninsula
• List of regions in Australia
• List of regions of Canada
• List of regions of the United States
• List of traditional regions of Slovakia
• Regions of Japan

See also

• Autonomous region
• Committee of the Regions
• Euroregion
• Latin names of regions
• Regional district
• Regional municipality