Nahiyah

"Nahiyeh" redirects here. For the villages in Iran, see Nahiyeh.

A nāḥiyah (Arabic: نَاحِيَة [ˈnaːħijah], plural nawāḥī نَوَاحِي [naˈwaːħiː]), also nahiyeh, nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level division while in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Xinjiang, and the former Ottoman Empire, where it was also called a bucak, it is a third-level or lower division. It can constitute a division of a qadaa, mintaqah or other such district-type division and is sometimes translated as "subdistrict".

Ottoman Empire

The nahiye (Ottoman Turkish: ناحیه) was an administrative territorial entity of the Ottoman Empire, smaller than a kaza. The head was a mütesellim (governor) who was appointed by the Pasha.

The kaza was a subdivision of a sanjak[1] and corresponded roughly to a city with its surrounding villages. Kazas, in turn, were divided into nahiyes (each governed by a müdür) and villages (karye, each governed by a muhtar).[2] Revisions of 1871 to the administrative law established the nahiye (still governed by a müdür) as an intermediate level between the kaza and the village.[2]

The term was adopted by the Principality of Serbia (1817–1833) and Principality of Montenegro (1852–1910), as nahija (Serbian Cyrillic: нахија).

Examples

Arabic-speaking countries

Country Level above (Arabic) Level above (English) Main article
Syria mintaqah (formerly qadaa) district
Palestine Liwa' governorates Districts of Palestine
Iraq Qadaa district Subdistricts of Iraq
Lebanon
Jordan Liwa' governorate Nahias of Jordan

Turkic-speaking territories

Other

Persian language

Persian has borrowed the Arabic word with the spelling ناحیه. Encyclopædia Iranica transliterates it mostly as nahia or, with diacritics, nāḥia/nāḥīa.[3] In modern contexts it may be used with the meaning of anything between 'census region',[4] and 'section' as in "Section (nāḥia) 2 of eleven local fishing stations".[5]

See also

  • Nahia (disambiguation page)

References

  1. ^ Selçuk Akşin Somel. "Kazâ". The A to Z of the Ottoman Empire. Volume 152 of A to Z Guides. Rowman & Littlefield, 2010. p. 151. ISBN 9780810875791
  2. ^ a b Gökhan Çetinsaya. The Ottoman Administration of Iraq, 1890–1908. SOAS/Routledge Studies on the Middle East. Routledge, 2006. p. 8-9. ISBN 9780203481325
  3. ^ "Jamkarān", Encyclopædia Iranica - online version. Quote: "... Jamkarān was the first village founded in the Qom district (nāḥia) by Jam. " Retrieved 15 Dec 2024.
  4. ^ "Census: i. In Iran", Encyclopædia Iranica - online version. Quote: "The country was divided into 25 census regions (nāḥīa)..." Retrieved 15 Dec 2024.
  5. ^ "Āstāna", Encyclopædia Iranica, Vol. II, Fasc. 8, p. 837 - online version. Retrieved 15 Dec 2024.
Look up nahiye, ناحية, ناحیه, or nahiya in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.


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