Canton (administrative division) in the context of "Province"

A federated state (also state, province, region, canton, land, governorate, oblast, emirate, or country) is a territorial and constitutional community forming part of a federation. A federated state does not have international sovereignty since powers are divided between the other federated states and the federal government. Unlike international sovereign states, which have what is often referred to as Westphalian sovereignty (such as exercised by their federal government), federated states operate under their domestic or federal law with relation to the rest of the world.

Federated states do not have automatic standing as entities of international law. Instead, the federal union (federation) as a single entity is the sovereign state for purposes of international law. Depending on the constitutional structure of a particular federation, a federated state can hold various degrees of legislative, judicial, and administrative jurisdiction over a defined geographic territory and is a form of regional government. A federated state may nonetheless establish offices internationally, for example, to promote trade or tourism, while still operating only within the trade policy or other applicable law of their federation, and their host country. They also may enter into international regional agreements under the laws of their federation and state, such as to protect a cross-border resource like water or other shared matters.

Federalism is a mode of government that combines a general level of government (a central or federal government) with a regional level of sub-unit governments (e.g., provinces, states, cantons, territories, etc.), while dividing the powers of governing between the two levels of governments. Two illustrative examples of federated countries—one of the world's oldest federations, and one recently organized—are Australia and Micronesia.

Johannes Althusius (1563–1638) is considered the father of modern federalism, along with Montesquieu. In 1603, Althusius first described the bases of this political philosophy in his Politica Methodice Digesta, Atque Exemplis Sacris et Profanis Illustrata. By 1748, in his treatise The Spirit of Law, Montesquieu (1689-1755) observed various examples of federalist governments: in corporate societies, in the polis bringing villages together, and in cities themselves forming confederations. In the modern era Federalism was first adopted by a union of the states of the Old Swiss Confederacy as of the mid-14th century.

The 12 cantons (French: canton [kɑ̃tɔ̃] ; German: Kanton [kanˈtoːn] ; Luxembourgish: Kanton [ˈkɑnton]) of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg are subdivisions at the first level of local administrative unit (LAU-1) in the European Union's Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics for Eurostat purposes. They were subdivisions of the three districts of Luxembourg until 2015, when the district level of government was abolished. The cantons are in turn subdivided into 100 communes (i.e. municipalities).
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The Federal Charter or Letter of Alliance (German: Bundesbrief) is one of the earliest constitutional documents of Switzerland. A treaty of alliance from 1291 between the cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden, the Charter is one of a series of alliances from which the Old Swiss Confederacy emerged. In the 19th and 20th century, after the establishment of the Swiss federal state, the Charter became the central founding document of Switzerland in the popular imagination.

The Charter documents the Eternal Alliance of the League of the Three Forest Cantons (German: Ewiger Bund der Drei Waldstätten), the union of three cantons in what is now central Switzerland. It is dated to early August 1291, which in the 20th century inspired the date of Swiss National Day, 1 August. Done in Latin, the Charter makes reference to a previous (lost or unwritten) pact. It is now exhibited at the Museum of the Swiss Charters of Confederation in Schwyz.

The Washington Agreement (Croatian: washingtonski sporazum; Bosnian: vašingtonski sporazum) was a ceasefire agreement between the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, signed on 18 March 1994 in Washington, D.C. It was signed by Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdžić, Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granić and President of Herzeg-Bosnia Krešimir Zubak.

Under the agreement, the combined territory held by the Croat and Bosnian (in that time Bosniak) government forces was divided into ten autonomous cantons, establishing the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and ending the Croat-Bosniak War. The cantonal system was selected to prevent dominance by one ethnic group over another.