The US has 50 states and something like a dozen political affiliates (possessions and other entities, some inhabited, some not) It got me to wondering what other country may have as many or more ‘states’. I couldn’t think of any off-hand.
So, I’m not sure how to accurately phrase it, but my attempt would be “What currently existing nation has the most major political subdivisions?”
This seems like a difficult question to answer. You’d need to define what you mean by “political subdivisions”.
For example, my country has six states and a couple of territories, yet it is nearly the size of the US “Lower 48”. On the other hand, my city - which is a sprawling, low-rise LA-style metropolis, has over thirty local government areas, each with its own mayor and local by-laws. Then you have places like the UK with its system of counties - they seem to be given greater importance than a US county, but lesser importance than a US state.
If you’re talking about large state or province-like political areas, I’d say it would be the US - but that’s just a guess. I think places like Australia and Canada are closer to the norm.
Russia has 89 subdivisions of various kinds.
Here’s the CIA World Factbook Administrative divisions field listing. There are clearly some definitional problems; Slovenia has a whopping 193 first-order administrative divisions, but these are 182 municipalities and 11 urban municipalities–basically, a country like Slovenia is only the size of what would be a first-order administrative division (a “province”) in many countries, and rather than having “provinces” what an American would consider “local governments” are directly subordinated to the national government.
According to the site linked by MEBuckner, the United Kingdom has 235 administrative districts, as broken up into
I know the boroughs don’t fulfill all the requirements of what one might call a first-order administrative district, and it’s a bit strange to count the 29 boroughs of London in this list, but 235 administrative districts is still impressive. I doubt even the UK government realizes how many there are…
235 is pretty a pretty misleading figure for the UK, though, because numerous places fit in more than one of the listed categories simultaneously.
Naturally the OP will have to decide what level of administrative unit corresponds to a US state, and it’s impossible to give a figure without clatification.
Yes… Canada has only 13 first-level administrative divisions (provinces and territories), but my particular administrative division has two further levels of subdivision: “Regional Municipalities” and counties; and then (one level beneath them) cities, towns, villages, and townships.
Counting the zeroth or top-level administrative structure, the federal government, there are up to four levels of government for any location. “Up to”, because some areas such as Toronto have a city government but no county or regional government.
I think Russia wins.
well if we’re going beyond ‘state’ level, i have divided my room into 8000 ‘fun zones’ ech to be governed by a different and unique stuffed animal, so i guess my room wins