Wilayah
(Redirected from Wilaya)
Categories: Government stubs | Subnational entities | Ottoman Empire
A wilayah (Arabic ولاية) is an administrative subdivision. It is usually translated as province. The word comes from the Arabic language.
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Use in specific countries
Arabic
For Morocco which is divided into provinces and wilayas this translation would cause the distinction to cease. For Sudan the term state, and for Mauritania the term region is used. For the United States the term wilayah relates to a member state.
See also
- Provinces of Afghanistan (velayat)
- Provinces of Algeria
- Provinces of Oman
- Regions of Mauritania
- States of Sudan
- Districts of Kenya
- Governorates of Tunisia
The governorates of Iraq (muhafazah) are often translated as province, in opposite to official Iraqi documents and the general use for other arab countries. This conflicts somehow with the general translation for muhafazah (governorate) and wilayah (province).
Malaysia and Indonesian
Wilayah Persekutuan is the Malay term for federal territory. In Malaysia the term wilayah is used to represent central government controled areas. Wilayah Persekutuan are the areas directly under the control of the federal government, which all other states in Malaysia are subordinate to. Wilayah persekutuan means in english Federal Teritory. States such as Penang and Mallacca enjoy far more autonomy from the central government, as they were former straits settlements of Britain. A major difference between Penang Island can be seen in automatic granting citizenship to any persons born within the Island of Penang, regardless of the citizenship of the parents. This right is a derived form of a law from the British era called "Jus Soli". However neither Penang or Mallaca actually practise their autonomy status in the spirit of unity within Malaysia. However east Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah practice a large degree of autonomy from the central government. Passports are required for a west Malaysian(Peninsular Malaysian to travel to East Malaysia(Borneo Malaysia), although in the spirit of the union, these requirements maybe done away in the future.
Technically Malaysia is only the areas covered within the wilayah persekutuan, all other states in the Federation of Malaysia are subordinate states to the Federal government, which may choose to leave the federation. One former state has done this in the past, the state of Singapore which left the Malaysian Federation to form a new country Republic of Singapore in the Mid Sixties.
However all Malaysians are equal federal citizens, meaning they owe no allegiance to the state, only to the federation of Malaysia, the Yang Dipertuan Agung, the Federal Constitution and the Malaysian Flag.
In Indonesian wilayah means area, region or regional, but does not refer to a level of government.
Turkey
The provinces of the Ottoman Empire were called vilâyet – the Turkish pronunciation of the Arabic word wilaya. This Ottoman Turkish name is still used in several similar forms:
- Provinces of Tajikistan (singular: viloyat, plural: viloyatho)
- Provinces of Turkmenistan (singular: welayat, plural: welayatlar)
- Provinces of Uzbekistan (singular: viloyat, plural: viloyatlar)
The current provinces of Turkey are called il in Turkish.
See also: subdivisions of the Ottoman Empire.
| arab language subdivision terms |
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| imarah | mintaqah | muhafazah | qadaa | wilayah |