Subprefecture
Administrative division of a country that is below prefecture
A subprefecture is an administrative division of a country that is below prefecture or province.
01Albania
There are twelve Albanian counties or prefectures, each of which is divided into several districts, sometimes translated as subprefectures.
- Examples: District of Korçë, District of Sarandë

02Brazil
In Brazil the subprefectures (Portuguese: subprefeituras) are administrative divisions of some big cities, such as São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The head of a subprefecture, the subprefeito, is indicated by the municipality's mayor (in Brazil called prefeito).
In São Paulo there are 32 subprefectures. The largest in total area, Parelheiros, covers 353.5 km2, and the most populous, Capela do Socorro, has more than 600,000 inhabitants.
03Chad
Examples: N'Gouri Subprefecture, Massakory Subprefecture
04China
It was used in Qing dynasty. Called ting (廳 or 厅) in Chinese, it is also on the same level as a department (州) and a district (縣), and is below a prefecture (府).
Example:
- Aihun Ting in the late-Qing Heilongjiang
A separate term also translated as subprefecture was jūnmínfǔ (t 軍民府, s 军民府), for instance at Qianshan in Guangdong.
05France
A subprefecture is the administrative town of an arrondissement where an arrondissement does not contain the prefecture. The civil servant in charge of local executive power is the sous-préfet.
Examples: Aix-en-Provence, Apt, Arles, Bayonne, Boulogne-Billancourt, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Calais, Cambrai, Chalon-sur-Saône, Château-Thierry, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Narbonne, Reims, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Malo, Saint-Omer, Sedan, Vichy.
06Ivory Coast
A sous-préfecture is an administrative division of a department in Ivory Coast.
Examples: Anyama Subprefecture, Bingerville Subprefecture, Brofodoumé Subprefecture, Songon Subprefecture
07Japan
Some Japanese prefectures have branch offices called 支庁 (shichō) in Japanese, which are translated in English as "subprefectures", "branch offices", or "branches of the prefectural government". See details in Subprefectures of Japan and an example of Kushiro Subprefecture.
08Taiwan
- The word "subprefecture" is used to translate the term tīng (廳) from Chinese. This was a type of subdivision under Qing dynasty rule.
- Examples include Tamsui Subprefecture (淡水廳 dàn shuĭ tīng) and Kavalan (Ga'malan) Subprefecture (噶瑪蘭廳 gá mă lán tīng, of Yilan City) (both in Taiwan).
- Under Japanese rule, the term 廳 (chō) is translated to prefecture, so 支廳 (shichō) is translated to subprefecture.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Subprefecture”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Sous-préfecture Autun 2.jpg by Chabe01, CC BY-SA 4.0
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