Talk:Regierungsbezirk

Relationship between Regierungsbezirke and former Principalities etc.
I was wondering. is it my imagination, or is there a relationship between the Regierungsbezirk and the former Principalities, Baronies,Dutchies, etc.? CORNELIUSSEON 23:42, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


 * not really —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.49.219.143 (talk) 07:25, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

plural form
Is it that clever to use the German plural form? Kindergarten has made it into the English language with a standard English plural: -s. Therefor (IMHO) the plural of Regierungsbezirk should be Regierungsbezirks. --32X 00:49, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The plural of Kindergarten is Kindergärten. And the plural of Regierungsbezirk is Regierungsbezirke. -- 62.156.40.152 (talk) 22:33, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
 * IMHO using English plural forms of foreign words is a bit intellectually lazy - I prefer to show the respect to the people of the countries of origin to learn their plurals, and their pronunciation. We Americans can try to be a little more cosmopolitan than we tend to be because of our geographical isolation.  user:Drbillellis 12:51, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
 * (In light of the typographical laziness [/sarcasm] of starting at the margin when previous contributors have indented under what they are commenting on, i have taken the unusual liberty of inferring the dr's intent, and doing my best to represent its relationship to its immediate environment accurately via indentation.) --Jerzy•t 20:31, 18 November 2017 (UTC) 
 * Hear, Hear! "Kindergarten" (despite my own sloppy English "Kindergarden" in contrast to my well-drilled German "Kindergarten") has apparently indeed "made it". "Regierungsbezirk" is (exceptionally for a Yank) part of my passive (yet not my active) vocab (i would probably drop the internal S in impromptu speech or unprompted online typing), but appears in English only in rare formal uses, such as WP, and (unless you do things like, let's say, intentionally drop the internal S -- as a gesture toward twd making its use practical for Yanks) you should not take the liberty of substituting final S for the orthodox E. "Verbum sap" (or more correctly "Verbum sap.") is somewhere in between.  But the discussion has been conducted in a vacuum, ignoring the  fact that this talk page is about the free encyclopedia, not our respective ambitions for shaping the English tongue. Why do we title the article "Regierungsbezirk", rather than "Modern German governmental unit intermediate between city and state"? Because there's no need for a separate English word for it;  coining an English word for its plural is (1) as silly as it is arrogant and (2) misrepresents the status of Bezirk (let alone Regierungsbezirk), which could start appearing in English dictionaries probably only well after cows start flying. --Jerzy•t 20:31, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Equivalent
I would not say that they are "roughly equivalent to a province" in other nations. A province or state in most other Western nations is a second-tier level of government. These Regierungsbezirk look to be third-tier (i.e. below both federal and state government), and would make them more equivalent to counties in other nations. Germany counties, which are districts, are more the equivalent of towns/townships. Someone may want to correct this. --Criticalthinker (talk) 11:47, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually, provinces are in some countries like Italy or Spain third-tier level of government. For instance, in Italy you have the national government, then the regions and within the regions provinces. The Regierungsbezirk is only an administrative division of the different states. They represent and operate for the different state government departments. For example, the president of a Regierungsbezirk is the executive prepresentative of the prime minister of the state. He/she is not elected by the people or by any parlament but only appointed by the government. In addition, the English wiki says about Landkreise which are under Regierungsbezirke: "The districts are at an intermediate level of administration between the Länder (German states) and the local / municipal levels (Gemeinden). They are not to be confused with the larger Regierungsbezirk. Their equivalent in other nations is the county or arrondissement. They correspond to level 3 administrative units or Local Administrative Units under the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics." Further, there are also structures esp. in rural areas that could be considered as townships, like Verwaltungsgemeinschaften etc. Don-M (talk) 14:32, 25 September 2009 (UTC)


 * At present, Wikipedia translates both Kreis and Bezirk as district which I think should be changed. -- 62.156.40.152 (talk) 22:35, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Definition of the Regierungsbezirks
The problem is that this article assumes that Regierungsbezirke are an independent tier of government (beside federal and state level) - however this is not correct. Regierungsbezirk is a solely administrative segmentation of the state's territory.

Therefore they directly belong to the respective state government and the Bezirksregierung (the authority that oversees the Regierungsbezirk) is a immediate state authority, directly subordinate to the state government, and with rather administrative than governmental duties (a so called "Landesmittelbehörde" meaning intermediate state authority, whereas the superiour state authoritys are the state ministries).

One can say that the Bezirksregierung is the field office of the state government responsible for the respective administrative Bezirk (in public they actually call themselves this way). --89.245.62.27 (talk) 01:13, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * This is not correct. Districts have an elected government of their own (although elections are held on the same day as state elections) and they are Gebietskörperschaften of their own. It is totally correct to regard them as an independent tier of government, even though the districts don't play an important role in politics because their government has only little power. -- 62.156.40.152 (talk) 22:31, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

No, Regierungsbezirke don't have elected governments. All of them are administrative units subordinated to state. In North Rhine - Westphalia there are "Regionalräte", a kind of council. But it is not elected in a direct election. After district elections this "Regionalrat" is constituted by delegates of district councils in proportion to election result. Baden-Württemberg and Hesse don't have a council on Regierungsbezirk level. Bavaria has a double structure: They have Regierungsbezirke as state administrativ units and Bezirke as a regional self government authority. They cover the same area. Bezirke have an elected council called Bezirkstag. Regierungsbezirke in Bavaria are "Mittelbehörde" and Bezirke are "Selbstverwaltungskörperschaft". Sorry, I don't know english terms  for that. A kind of oddity has Rhineland-Palatinate: they disestablished Regierungsbezirke some years ago, but in Palatinate there is still a "Bezirksverband" with elected "Bezirkstag" which is a kind of regional self government. This is only in Palatinate (which was part of Bavaria before 1945) but not in other regions of RLP. Some german states fe. Baden-Württemberg, North-Rhine-Westfalia or Hesse have so called Kommunalverbände or Planungsregionen which are smaller units but also have a lot of common administrative tasks ManfredV (talk) 17:35, 27 February 2018 (UTC)