Administrative divisions (also administrative units, administrative regions, subnational entities, or constituent states, as well as many similar generic terms) are geographical areas into which a particular independent sovereign state is divided, such a unit usually has an administrative authority with the power to take administrative or policy decisions for its area. Administrative divisions are often used as polygons in geospatial analysis.
Districts of Switzerland are a political subdivision for cantons. In the federally constituted Switzerland, each canton is completely free to decide its own internal organisation. Therefore, there exists a variety of structures and terminology for the subnational entities between canton and municipality, loosely termed districts. Most cantons are divided into Bezirke (German for districts, singular Bezirk). They are also termed Ämter (Lucerne, singular Amt), Amtsbezirke (Bern, Amtsbezirk), district (in French) or distretto (Ticino and part of Graubünden). The Bezirke generally provide only administration and court organization. However, for historical reasons districts in cantons Grisons and Schwyz are their own legal entities with jurisdiction over tax and often have their own Landsgemeinde.
Seven of the 26 cantons – Uri, Obwalden, Nidwalden, Glarus, Zug, Basel-City and Geneva – have always existed without the district level of government. An eighth one, Appenzell Innerrhoden, uses no intermediate level either, but calls its lowest-level subdivisions Bezirke, although they are functionally equivalent to municipalities elsewhere.
India is a federal union comprising 28 states and 8 union territories, for a total of 36 subnational entities. The states and union territories in turn are each subdivided into a total of around 800 districts, which contain further administrative subdivisions.
Under the Indian Constitution and laws, the states of India are self-governing administrative divisions, each having a state government. The legal power to manage affairs in each state is shared or divided between the particular state government on one hand and the national union government on the other. The union territories are directly governed by the union government; no state level government (and thus no division of power) exists in these jurisdictions.