Wilayah

Not to be confused with Walayah.

For the subdivisions of the Ottoman Empire, see Vilayet. For the Spanish movie, see Wilaya (film).

Monastir Vilayet, Ottoman Empire (1900)

A wilayah (Arabic: وَلاية, romanized: walāya or wilāya, plural wilāyat, wilayat; Urdu and Persian: ولایت, velâyat; Pashto: ولایت, Valāyat; Turkish: vilayet) is an administrative division, usually translated as "state", "province" or occasionally as "governorate". The word comes from the Arabic root "w-l-y", "to govern": a wāli—"governor"—governs a wālāya (or wilāya), "that which is governed". Under the Caliphate, the term referred to any constituent near-sovereign state.

Use in specific countries

In Arabic, wilayah is used to refer to the states of the United States, and the United States of America as a whole is called al-Wilāyāt al-Muttaḥidah al-Amrīkīyah, literally meaning "the American United States".

North Africa and Middle East

For Morocco, which is divided into provinces and wilāyas, the translation "province" would cause the distinction to cease. For Sudan, the term state and for Mauritania, the term region is used.

• Provinces of Algeria
• Provinces of Oman
• Regions of Mauritania
• States of Sudan
• Governorates of Tunisia
• Districts of Tanzania

The governorates of Iraq (muhafazah) are sometimes translated as provinces, in contrast to official Iraqi documents and the general use for other Arab countries. This conflicts somehow with the general translation for muhafazah (governorate) and wilāyah (province).

China

In the ethnically diverse Xinjiang region of Northwest China, the seven undifferentiated prefectures proper (Chinese: 地区; pinyin: dìqū; that is, not prefecture-level cities, autonomous prefectures, etc.) are translated into the Uygur language as Vilayiti (ۋىلايىتى). For the other, more numerous types of administrative divisions in Xinjiang, however, Uygur uses Russian loanwords like oblasti or rayoni, in common with other Xinjiang languages like Kazakh.

Kenya and Tanzania

In Kenya and Tanzania, the term wilaya is a Swahili term which refers to the administrative districts into which provinces are divided.

• Districts of Kenya
• Districts of Tanzania

Southeast Asia

In Malay (both in Malaysian and Indonesian standards) and Tausug, wilayah or wilāya is a general word meaning "territory", "area" or "region".

In Thailand, it is the standard Malay term used to translate a "province"".

In Malaysia, the term

• Wilayah Persekutuan, often shortened to "Wilayah" in colloquial speech, refers to the three federal territories under direct control of the federal government: Kuala Lumpur, Labuan and Putrajaya.
• Wilayah Ekonomi Pantai Timur, is translated as East Coast Economic Region

In the Philippines, the term

• Wilāya sin Lupa' Sūg refers to the province of Sulu, Philippines.

Ottoman Empire

Main article: Vilayets of the Ottoman Empire

Traditionally the provinces of the Ottoman Empire were known as eyâlets, but beginning in 1864, they were gradually restructured as smaller vilâyets—the Turkish pronunciation of the Arabic word wilāyah. Most were subdivided into sanjaks.

The current provinces of Turkey are called il in Turkish.

Islamic State

The territory under the governance of the Islamic State (ISIS) is referred to them as officially being divided into wilayah, often translated into English as "province". An example is Islamic State – Khorasan Province and Islamic State - West Africa Province.

Central Asia and Caucasus

The Persian word for province (velâyat) is still used in several similar forms in Central Asian countries:

• Provinces of Afghanistan (Pashto: ولايت, wilāyat, plural: ولايتونه, wilāyatuna), subdivided into districts (Pashto: ولسوالۍ, wuləswāləi or Persian: ولسوالی, wolaswālī)
• Regions of Tajikistan (singular: viloyat, plural: viloyatho), subdivided into districts (Tajik: ноҳия, nohiya or Russian: район, raion)
• Regions of Turkmenistan (singular: welaýat, plural: welaýatlar), subdivided into districts (Turkmen: etrap)
• Regions of Uzbekistan (singular: viloyat, plural: viloyatlar), subdivided into districts (Uzbek: tuman)

During the Soviet period the divisions of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan were called oblasts and raions, using Russian terminology.

In the Tsez language, the districts of Dagestan are also referred to as "вилайат" (wilayat), plural "вилайатйоби" (wilayatyobi). But the term "район" (rayon), plural "районйаби" (rayonyabi) is also used.

Caucasus Emirate, a self-proclaimed successor state to the unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, is divided into vilayats.

South Asia

In Urdu, the term Vilayat is used to refer to any foreign country. As an adjective Vilayati is used to indicate an imported article or good. In Bengali and Assamese, the term is bilat and bilati (archaic bilaiti), referring exclusively to Britain and British-made. The British slang term blighty derives from this word, via the fact that the foreign British were referred to using this word during the time of the British Raj.

See also

• Vilayet