Raion

Rajon (plural rajons or rajones; Belarusian раён, otherwise Cyrillic район; Latvian rajons, Lithuanian rajonas, Georgian რაიონი [ɾa. i. ɔ.ni], Azerbaijani rayon; derived from French rayon 'district') is the name for an administrative unit in many successor states of the Soviet Union, such as Azerbaijan, Georgia (until 2006), Latvia (until 2009), Lithuania, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, as well as in other countries, such as Bulgaria. Rajons roughly correspond to the German Landkreise or the Austrian Bezirke, in cities to the Stadtbezirke.

Present uses

Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan is divided into 59 rayons (rayon; plural: rayonlar) in addition to an autonomous republic and eleven cities.

Bulgaria

Administration

In Bulgaria, at the administrative level, a rayon (Bulgarian район/rajon; plural: райони/rajoni) corresponds to a city district. For example, the city of Sofia consists of 24 municipal districts.

In the NUTS breakdown (NUTS:BG), the two rajoni form level 1, while the six rajoni za planirane ('planning regions') form level 2.

Culture

In Bulgarian folklore, the culturally distinct regions are also referred to as rajons:

• Northern Bulgaria (from Vidin to Russe north of the Balkans)
• Dobruja: north-east of the Varna-Russia line
• Schop: Western Bulgaria (west of Sredna Gora) and around Sofia
• Pirin: the south-western corner of Bulgaria (Bulgarian Macedonia)
• Rhodope Mountains: the mountains in the south of the country
• Thrace: south of the Balkans and east of Sredna Gora
• Strandscha: the sparsely populated mountain range south of Burgas

Moldova

Since 2003, the Republic of Moldova has been divided into 32 rajons (Romanian raion). They replaced the significantly larger nine counties (județ, plural: județe). These rajons, together with the two autonomous regions and the independent cities known as municipalities, form the highest level of administrative division in the Republic of Moldova. Every four years, the president (președinte) of the district council (Consiliul Raional) is elected in the course of the nationwide uniform local elections.

Russia

In Russia, the administrative hierarchy of the rajons is below the "subject level", i.e. the highest federal administrative level consisting of oblasts, regions, autonomous districts and autonomous republics. The rajons are on the same level as city districts (gorodskoi okrug).

In two republics of Russia, the rajons are also officially designated in Russian with the slightly modified terms adopted from the respective national languages, but have the same status as "normal" rajons:

• in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia): ulus (Russian улус, plural улусы ulussy, Yakutian улуус uluus, plural улуустара uluustara)
• in the Republic of Tuva: Koshuun (Russian and Tuvan кожуун, plural Russian кожууны koschuuny, plural Tuvan кожууннаар koschunnaar).

Many large cities are also subdivided into rajons, corresponding to city districts, each of which often encompasses several historical districts or quarters. Sometimes these urban rajons are referred to as "administrative" or "administrative rajons" (administratiwny rajon in Chita) or "inner-city rajons" (vnutrigorodskoi rajon; in Kemerovo, Nizhny Novgorod, Novokuznetsk, Prokopyevsk, Tambov, Vladikavkaz). In Moscow, 125 rajons constitute the second highest level of administrative hierarchy in 10 of the 12 administrative districts (administratiwny okrug). In St. Petersburg, as in other large cities, 18 rajons are the highest level of administration, but there they are subdivided into 111 administrative units of a further hierarchical level. Some large cities are not divided into rajons, but into okrugs (which also means "district") or variants thereof, for example Arkhangelsk ("territorial districts", territorialny okrug), Krasnodar (simple okrug) or Omsk ("administrative district", administratiwny okrug, like Moscow at the top administrative level).

Ukraine

In 2020, there are 136 rajons spread across 24 oblasts and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

Historical use

In the Soviet Union, rajons were gradually introduced from the 1920s, replacing the former uyezde (and okrugs) of the Russian Empire. These rajons largely gave rise to the present-day administrative units of the same name in several of the above-mentioned successor states of the Soviet Union. In Georgia, the territorial boundaries of many former rajons have been preserved, but they are no longer called rajons, but form municipalities.