When and how/why did your administrative regions become regions of their own?

13 comments

1. The current setup became its own in 2007, with the municipal and regional reform. This reduced the number of municipalities from 271 to 98, and abolished the 14 counties, replacing them with 5 new regions instead. It was a massive centralisation, though nothing like the centralisation we saw in 1970, where 1098 municipalities became 277, and 25 counties became the aforementioned 14.

   Before 1970, we had the so-called “city”(*Købstads*-) and “parish”(*Sogne*-) municipalities. As the names imply, the first group was municipalities with cities, the second group was rural municipalities *without* cities. The borders of those were largely drawn by simply outlining the parishes of the national church, or by taking the cities and their properties. With “city” I here mean urban areas with market rights. The last city to be granted city status in Denmark was Skjern, which were granted its royal charter in 1958, but the status of city in that meaning was abolished in administration just 12 years later.

   So the municipalities and the regions of today are largely the work of planners and administrators and political compromises, build on top of borders of older municipalities, build on top of older municipalities, in turn build upon old borders of parishes and market cities. Sometimes the borders follow, sometimes they cut across old borders, but overall, the remaining older borders, such as parishes (which are still national administrative divisions, since we have a national church and a state religion,) have had heels and toes cut, to fit the new ones.

2. The 15 counties of Estonia:

   – 4 (+2) ancient counties that were semi-independent states until the early 13th century: [Harju](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harju_County), [Järva](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A4rva_County), [Lääne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A4%C3%A4ne_County) and [Saare](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saare_County). Same goes for Viru which was split into [Ida-Viru](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida-Viru_County) and [Lääne-Viru](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A4%C3%A4ne-Viru_County) during the Soviet occupation. Harju controls very little of its original territory, but there is still continuity with the original county.

   – 3 counties created by by the crusader states: [Tartu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartu_County) in 1224, [Viljandi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viljandi_County) in 1234, [Pärnu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A4rnu_County) in 1265.

   – 2 counties created during the imperial Russian era, by the administrative reform initiated by Empress Catherine II: [Valga](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valga_County) and [Võru](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%B5ru_County) both in 1783.

   – 1 county created on the lands gained from Soviet Russia after the Estonian War of Independence in 1920: [Petseri](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petseri_County). Its lands were largely annexed into Russia at the start of the Soviet occupation and Estonia no longer controls them. The rest of its areas were incorporated into other counties.

   – 4 (+2) counties created during the Soviet occupation: [Hiiu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiiu_County) in 1946, [Jõgeva](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B5geva_County) in 1949 and [Põlva](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%B5lva_County) and [Rapla](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapla_County) in 1950. Add to that the splitting of Viru in 1950. These are actually the surviving remnants of when Soviet-occupied Estonia was divided into 39 *rayon* to harmonize the local administration with that in the Soviet Union. But they started to merge with each other, leaving behind the 9 (+2) previous Estonian counties and 4 (+2) extra ones.

3. Some of the names date back all the way to the early medieval duchies like Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia but their historic areas don’t necessarily overlap with the modern states.

   After the Napoleonic times in the 19th century you can already recognise quite a few modern borders and names on the map of the German confederation.

   But the states as we know them today, were only created by the 4 WWII allies shortly after the war. Often two or more historic regions were group together, that’s why many states have a hyphen and a very long name.

   A map of 1950 Germany already looks very similar to today. however, shortly afterwards the states in the GDR were dissolved and only rejoined the Federal Republic in 1990. Since then there have only been very minor border adjustments.

4. It’s a bit of a mix in England.

   I live in Sussex, which means South Saxon, and has been around since the 600s. Most counties emerged after that with the Normans in the late 1000s.

   As the population grew, boundaries were changed to make the counties smaller, especially since the 1800s. Yorkshire was split into 4 and Sussex into 2.

   At the same time, London got bigger. Middlesex disappeared maybe 50 years ago? Anything south of the Thames in London used to be Surrey but that changed in the early 1900s. A lot of Essex, Kent and Hertfordshire became London.

5. Most have existed for a long time. The current Bundesländer exist since 1920, when Vienna became an independent state from Lower Austria.

   Many of the regions classified as “states” when the republic was enacted after WW1 used to be seperate earldoms, dukedoms and whatnot in the monarchy. In some cases the borders changed a little. Österreich ob und unter der Enns became Upper and Lower Austria, Tirol and Vorarlberg split up, Southern Tirol went to Italy.

   What is the Burgenland today used to be West Hungary.

   Of course in the monarchy, those regions didn’t have any power, because the duke, Earl and whatnot of those regions was the emperor. Now we are a federal republic, so the Länder have significant power. Some would say, too much for such a small country, but people from the west will lynch you for that opinion.

6. Well the administrative regions haven’t really become regions of themself. Because the current system is very new, but the “län” division is almost 400 years old and yet to become regions of themselves because it has been changed as late as 1998. Even Finland had this division up to 2010 when they removed it.

   Although the local division has become a lot of their own small regions, the Commune reform from the 1970’s that cut down municipalities from thousands to below 300. I guess a fairly local identity has been able to been grown out from these a bit larger municipalities and have become a bit a region of themselves now.

   The way we divide Sweden in regions that are regions of themselves so called “Landskap” were our previous administrative regions. From before the 17th century. These are also cultural regions and there are distinctive dialects between them and so on. But are not longer administrative.

7. Different Finnic tribes speaking different Finnic dialects lived in the areas of modern Finland, Estonia, Russia, Latvia and Sweden. In Lapland lived Sami people. The modern administrative areas in Finland are mainly formed along the borders of those tribes.

   Also, most of modern Finland was ruled by Sweden from 1100s to 1809. Karelia, Kainuu and parts of Savo have been mainly under Novgorod and Moscow, having had only few centuries of Swedish rule. That left marks in the regions. Lapland has a long history of being not really in any empire and it’s influenced by Sami people.

   Autonomic Åland is then a different story. I like to think it as a different, Scandinavian, country:)

8. Most go back to the Middle Ages when they were all their own duchy, county, or had some other type of local rule. They became separate provinces in the HRE and many later separate states in the Seven United Provinces of the Netherlands. By the mid-16th century you already had as separate provinces: Zeeland, Holland, Utrecht, Brabant, Limburg, Friesland, Overijssel, Groningen and Gelre (today Gelderland). They mostly correspond to their modern-day boundaries, except Overijssel also included Drenthe, Brabant was much bigger than it is now, and Limburg much smaller.

   Brabant got split into two after the Eighty Year’s war in the mid-17th century, with half remaining in Belgium and half in the Netherlands which is still the situation now.

   Limburg only got its current form after Belgium’s independence in 1830.

   Drenthe went back and forth between being separate (often without any representation) and part of things and only finally became a separate province after the founding of the Kingdom in 1815.

   Holland got split in two soon after in 1840 to avoid it becoming too dominant over the other provinces.

   Flevoland only got created last century and officially became a province in 1986.

9. The Italian regions were officially founded in 1948 by decree of the newly adopted Constitution, but didn’t gain administrative autonomy until 1970.
   At first there were 19 but were later raised to 20 in 1963 with the division of the Abruzzi e Molise region into the regions of Abruzzo and of Molise.

   The borders largely follow those of previous administrative subdivisions (for example those of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies) or states (duchies and city states) that existed in Italy since the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
   These divisions were themselves loosely based on the borders of the 11 regiones created by Roman emperor Augustus around 7 BC.

10. Ours predate the country itself; it’s like a little EU.

    Until the late 1790, they were independent city-states and non-city republics with a network of alliances between each other, then some territories that were subject to one or more of those republics, but not part of those polities, and then some other polities that were more loosely associated with that network.

    Then we kinda imported the French Revolution and got occupied. The French eliminated some of the border gore, formed new cantons by liberating territories that were previously subjected territories, experimented with different constitutions and finally settled for the old canton’s borders plus the new cantons. And Geneva joined.

11. 1994 for the current set up. Historically there were provinces, by the 12th century we had burghs/royal burghs, later on we took on counties/shires to match the English system, which were replaced in the mid-1970s with a handful of fairly big regions. The regions were then split up and reorganised into the current council areas.

12. The [22 counties](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5a/Wales_Administrative_Map_2009.png/600px-Wales_Administrative_Map_2009.png) in Wales were established following local government reforms in the UK in 1996.

    It’s led to frequent debates in recent years about whether some of them should merge, so that we are left with only 10 or 11 counties. If you start looking at how other public bodies like the [Police forces](https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/book/9781529214253/Images/fig_C001_002.jpg), [Fire services](https://www.frsug.org/minutes/images/20140602.png), Ambulance service, and the [“Health Boards”](http://www.wales.nhs.uk/gallery/HealthBoards2.jpg) that make up the National Health Service are organised, there are very few similarities save for North Wales always being defined by the same 6 counties.

    EDIT: added links to maps showing fire, police etc.

13. Possibly the earliest form of Brittany existing is “armorique”, the name the romans gave the region between the Seine and the Loire, inhabited by Gauls. In the early middle ages, Anglo saxon invasions of the British Isles pushed celtic people outwards, to Cornwall, Wales and some even fled to the mainland, especially in brittany. Those refugees mixed with the latinised Gauls and formed what became knows as Bretons. Brittany was originally a collection of chiefdoms, unified by Erispoe in the 800s. It soon became a duchy, that stayed independant for many more centuries, oscillating between English, French, Austrian or even Spanish influence. In the 1500s, the duchess Anne of Brittany married the then king of france, and through royal shenanigans the kingdom of france and the duchy of brittany were unified. It then stayed a very independant region until the revolution. Even after that, brittany kept a very strong regional identity, that’s today still pretty distinct from the french one, although most bretons now consider themselves french.