What is "governorate"

n. The territory governed by a governor; a province.

A governorate, or a guberniya (; also romanized ), was a major and principal administrative subdivision of the Russian Empire and the early Russian SFSR. The term is usually translated as government, governorate, or province. A governorate was ruled by a governor (, gubernator), a word borrowed from Latin , in turn from Greek . Sometimes the term guberniya was informally used to refer to the office of a governor.

Selected governorates were united under an assigned governor general such as Grand Duchy of Finland, Tsardom of Poland, Russian Turkestan and others. There also were military governors such as Kronshtadt, Vladivostok, and others. Aside of governorates, other types of divisions were oblasts (region) and okrugs (district).

A governorate is an administrative division of a country. It is headed by a governor. As English-speaking nations tend to call regions administered by governors either states, provinces, or colonies, the term governorate is often used in translation from non-English-speaking administrations.

The most common usage is as a translation of the Arabic Muhafazah. It may also refer to the guberniya and general-gubernatorstvo of Imperial Russia or the 34 gobernaciones of Imperial Spain.