Administrative district
In Germany , an administrative district ( Reg.-Bez. For short ) is the district of a general state funding authority in which various departmental tasks are bundled. This authority is headed by a district president and was / is called the royal government , later the district president (in Prussia), regional council (in Baden-Württemberg, Hesse), government (in Bavaria) or district government (in North Rhine-Westphalia).
The state resources authority stands as a middle instance between the upper and highest state authorities ( ministry ) and the district administrator as the lower state authority for the district of a district.
Opposing developments
This administrative level exists today mainly in the larger German territorial states. There have been efforts in some countries to abolish them and to bundle tasks nationwide (through ministries or regional higher authorities) or to shift them to the municipal level. So has z. B. Rhineland-Palatinate dissolved its administrative districts, while in Baden-Württemberg , for example, this administrative level was strengthened by the administrative reform of 2005 by transferring new tasks to them.
A similar development can be seen in North Rhine-Westphalia. At the beginning of 2007, various special authorities (e.g. state environmental offices , offices for agricultural regulations , offices for occupational health and safety ) were incorporated into the district governments. Some of their activities have also been transferred to the municipalities. The industry representatives originally advocated this step as a reduction in bureaucracy. However, there are increasing fears ( BDI , VCI ) that the municipal dependencies can no longer guarantee the previous independent legal standard.
If the tasks of the intermediate authorities are shifted to lower instances, the principle of granting administration must be observed, according to which the local area of responsibility of the general authorities and the special authorities as well as the various special authorities should be territorially congruent with each other and these different authorities should be responsible for one and the same geographical area (" administrative geographic congruence ”).
history
After Bavaria (1806), Prussia divided its national territory into provinces and administrative districts between 1808 and 1816 . The latter published an official gazette for public communications since 1811 .
During the time of the German Empire , the larger non-Prussian federal states also had administrative districts as a central instance of state administration, but under different names: districts in Bavaria and Württemberg , provinces in Hesse , state commissioner districts in Baden , district chiefs in Saxony . During the Nazi era, the designations were adjusted to the Prussian designation administrative district .
After 1945, the administrative districts in most of the territorial states were re-established as central state bodies. The administrative authority for the administrative districts, the boundaries of which have changed several times in the course of their history, was called either "District Presidium", "Government", "The District President" or "District Government". The head of this authority is the district president.
In the course of the abolition of the federal states in the administrative reform of 1952, so-called districts were set up in the German Democratic Republic , the areas of which only partially coincided with former government districts. When the federal states were re-established in 1990, when the GDR was in the process of dissolution, administrative districts were only created again in Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony, but these no longer exist today (see the following section).
Administrative districts
There are administrative districts in the following countries:
- Baden-Württemberg - 4 administrative districts: Freiburg , Karlsruhe , Stuttgart , Tübingen
-
Bavaria - 7 administrative districts: Upper Bavaria , Lower Bavaria , Upper Franconia , Middle Franconia , Lower Franconia , Upper Palatinate , Swabia . Independently of these district governments as central state authorities, self-governing bodies that coincide with these also exist, the districts
See also: List of government districts in Bavaria - Hesse - 3 administrative districts: Darmstadt , Gießen , Kassel
- North Rhine-Westphalia - 5 administrative districts: Arnsberg , Detmold , Düsseldorf , Cologne , Münster
In the following countries there is no longer a division into administrative districts:
- Rhineland-Palatinate (since 2000)
- Saxony-Anhalt (since 2003)
- Lower Saxony (since 2005, but the classification was retained for the Lower Saxony state school authority )
- Saxony (since March 1, 2012; here the administrative districts were renamed as administrative districts on August 1, 2008 as part of the administrative reorganization , but these three administrative districts were then merged into a single state directorate of Saxony on March 1, 2012 )
Brandenburg , Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Thuringia did not set up any administrative districts when they joined the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990, while Schleswig-Holstein and Saarland never had any administrative districts.
Former administrative districts
- In the Grand Duchy of Hesse there was a massive restructuring in the course of the March Revolution in 1848 : the counties and provinces were abolished and government districts were established in their place. This reform only lasted four years, because the reaction revised the reform of 1848 in 1852 and returned to the old order with three provinces and these subordinate districts. The regional councils in the period from 1848 to 1852 were:
- Alsfeld administrative district (formerly: Upper Hesse province )
- Administrative district of Biedenkopf (formerly: Province of Upper Hesse)
- Darmstadt (formerly: Province of Starkenburg )
- Dieburg (formerly: Province of Starkenburg)
- Erbach (formerly: Province of Starkenburg)
- Friedberg (formerly: Province of Upper Hesse)
- Giessen (formerly: Province of Upper Hesse)
- Heppenheim (formerly: Province of Starkenburg)
- Mainz (formerly: Province of Rheinhessen )
- Nidda (formerly: Province of Upper Hesse)
- Worms (formerly: Province of Rheinhessen, spun off from the administrative district of Mainz in 1850)
- Disbanded before 1945:
- Berlin ( Brandenburg , 1822)
- Kleve ( Jülich-Kleve-Berg , 1822)
- Reichenbach ( Silesia , 1820)
- Stralsund ( Pomerania , 1932)
- West Prussia ( East Prussia , 1939)
- First dissolved in 1920 as a result of the assignments under the Versailles Treaty , re-established in the course of the German annexations in Poland in 1939, dissolved again after the German defeat in 1945:
- Bromberg ( Posen / Danzig-West Prussia )
- Danzig ( West Prussia / Danzig-West Prussia)
- Marienwerder (West Prussia / Danzig-West Prussia)
- Posen (Posen / Wartheland )
- Temporarily set up in Poland in 1939 in the course of the German annexations, dissolved after the German defeat in 1945:
- Hohensalza (Wartheland)
- Katowice (Silesia)
- Litzmannstadt (until 1941 was called Kalisch administrative district; Wartheland)
- Zichenau (East Prussia)
- Dissolved in 1945 after the eastern territories of the German Empire fell to Poland and the Soviet Union :
- Allenstein (East Prussia)
- Wroclaw (Silesia)
- Gumbinnen (East Prussia)
- Köslin (Pomerania)
- Königsberg (East Prussia)
- Liegnitz (Silesia)
- Opole (Silesia)
- Schneidemühl (Pomerania)
- Szczecin (Pomerania)
- Due to the new post-war administrative structure in the western zones of occupation:
- Minden (North Rhine-Westphalia, 1947)
- Sigmaringen ( Hohenzollernsche Lande , 1946)
- Renamed due to new headquarters in the western occupation zones:
- Minden-Lippe (North Rhine-Westphalia, 1947)
- Due to the new post-war administrative structure in the Soviet zone of occupation / GDR dissolved and replaced by the districts of the GDR as a replacement for the federal states and administrative districts:
- Erfurt (Thuringia, 1945)
- Frankfurt (Brandenburg, 1952)
- Halle ( Saxony-Anhalt , 1952; re-established after reunification)
- Magdeburg (Saxony-Anhalt, 1952; re-establishment after reunification)
- Merseburg ( Halle-Merseburg , 1945)
- Potsdam (Brandenburg, 1952)
- Zwickau (Saxony, 1946)
- Renamed in 1952 due to the formation of the state of Baden-Württemberg :
- Disbanded or newly tailored and renamed during the territorial reforms of the 1960s and 1970s:
- Aachen (North Rhine-Westphalia, 1972)
- Aurich (Lower Saxony, 1978)
- Braunschweig, administrative district (Lower Saxony, 1978)
- Hildesheim (Lower Saxony, 1978)
- Montabaur (Rhineland-Palatinate, 1968)
- North Baden (Baden-Württemberg, 1973)
- North Württemberg (Baden-Württemberg, 1973)
- Oldenburg, administrative district (Lower Saxony, 1978)
- Osnabrück (Lower Saxony, 1978)
- Palatinate (Rhineland-Palatinate, 1968)
- Rheinhessen (Rhineland-Palatinate, 1968)
- Stade (Lower Saxony, 1978)
- South Baden (Baden-Württemberg, 1973)
- South Württemberg-Hohenzollern (Baden-Württemberg, 1973)
- Wiesbaden (Hesse, 1968)
- Abolition of the administrative district level in Rhineland-Palatinate 1999:
- Abolition of the administrative district level in Saxony-Anhalt 2003:
- Abolition of the administrative district level in Lower Saxony in 2004:
- Merging of the regional directorates (formerly government districts) in Saxony 2012:
Historical development of the administrative districts in the Federal Republic of Germany
date | Country (state) | change | number |
---|---|---|---|
May 23, 1949 | Federal Republic of Germany | 31 | |
April 25, 1952 | Baden-Württemberg | +2 | 33 |
May 6, 1968 | Hesse | −1 ( Wiesbaden ) | 32 |
July 9, 1968 | Rhineland-Palatinate | −2 | 30th |
August 1, 1972 | North Rhine-Westphalia | −1 ( Aachen ) | 29 |
February 1, 1978 | Lower Saxony | −4 | 25th |
January 1, 1981 | Hesse | +1 ( casting ) | 26th |
3rd October 1990 | Saxony-Anhalt | +3 | 29 |
January 1, 1991 | Saxony | +3 | 32 |
January 1, 2000 | Rhineland-Palatinate | −3 | 29 |
January 1, 2004 | Saxony-Anhalt | −3 | 26th |
January 1, 2005 | Lower Saxony | −4 | 22nd |
March 1, 2012 | Saxony | −3 | 19th |
Number of countries with administrative districts
date | measure | change | number |
---|---|---|---|
May 23, 1949 | Foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany | 6th | |
3rd October 1990 | Integration of the new states into the Federal Republic of Germany (Saxony-Anhalt) | +1 | 7th |
January 1, 1991 | Formation of the administrative districts in Saxony | +1 | 8th |
January 1, 2000 | Dissolution of the administrative districts in Rhineland-Palatinate | −1 | 7th |
January 1, 2004 | Dissolution of the administrative districts in Saxony-Anhalt | −1 | 6th |
January 1, 2005 | Dissolution of the administrative districts in Lower Saxony | −1 | 5 |
March 1, 2012 | Abolition of the state directorates (formerly government districts) in Saxony | −1 | 4th |
See also
literature
- Jörg Bogumil, Steffen Kottmann: Administrative structural reform - the abolition of the district governments in Lower Saxony (= series of publications of the Westphalia Initiative Foundation . Volume 11 ). Ibbenbürener Vereindruckerei, Ibbenbüren 2006, ISBN 3-932959-48-5 ( PDF ).
- Geometro: Germany map (administration, political): federal states, administrative districts, districts . Map, June 17, 2016. ISBN 978-3-9817675-4-4
Web links
- Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy : Administrative map of Germany. Federal states, administrative districts, districts Edition 2014
- Administrative districts by area, population and population density on December 31 , 2015 destatis.de , accessed on February 9, 2017 (xls, 122 kB, file is not accessible)
- Historical lexicon of Bavaria: Administrative districts of Bavaria