The districts of

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

are administrative units known as in the

Slovak language Slovak ( ; endonym: or ), is a West Slavic language of the Czech-Slovak languages, Czech–Slovak group, written in Latin script and formerly in Cyrillic script. It is part of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family, and is ...

. It is a second-tier territorial administrative unit, below a

Region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...

() in standing, and superior to a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

(). Each district contains at least several municipalities. The cities of

Bratislava Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...

and

Košice Košice is the largest city in eastern Slovakia. It is situated on the river Hornád at the eastern reaches of the Slovak Ore Mountains, near the border with Hungary. With a population of approximately 230,000, Košice is the second-largest cit ...

are the only cities in Slovakia divided into internal urban districts, with five in Bratislava, and four in Košice. These urban districts are then further divided into smaller boroughs (which serve a function analogous to municipalities in typical districts). All other districts are larger in size and also include rural areas, and rural as well as urban municipalities. Each of these more typical districts has an urban centre serving as the seat of the district, usually the largest town (or the only town) of a given district. Rural municipalities are not legally allowed to become district seats.

Map of current Slovak districts

Characteristics

Several districts form a "region" (). One district, on the other hand, consists of several "municipalities" (), which in turn consist of "cadastral areas" (). Districts have been units of state administration in Slovakia since its creation with a few interruptions, e. g. the period from 2004 to late 2013. Today, each district is administered by a "district office" (). Since late 2013, there have also been some special district offices responsible (regarding some selected issues) not for the territory of a district, but for the territory of a region (). These are called "district office at the seat of a region" (). In the period between 2004 and late 2013, the district offices were abolished and replaced by "circuit offices" (.), which were usually responsible for several districts (except for the Nové Zámky District, which was one district with two circuit offices). Slovakia currently has 79 districts, with the capital city of

being divided into 5 districts and the city of

into 4 districts. The districts are named after their administrative seats, colloquially known as "district towns". The district town is commonly the largest town in the district, although exceptions exist, such as Ilava District where the district town Ilava is far overshadowed by the much larger Dubnica nad Váhom, or Košice-okolie District, the seat of which (Košice) is not part of the district at all, instead being subdivided into four of its own districts.

Districts of Slovakia

The following table gives an overview of the districts, along with the population, area, and location within Slovakia.

References

External links

Urban and municipal statistics
{{Articles on second-level administrative divisions of European countries Subdivisions of Slovakia Slovakia, Districts Slovakia 2 Districts, Slovakia Slovakia geography-related lists

Map of current Slovak districts

Characteristics

Districts of Slovakia

See also

References

External links