Talk:Districts of Germany

Cities with over 100,000 inhabitants that are no urban districts

The article says that in Northrine-Westfalia, there are several cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants that nevertheless belong to a rural district. In the list, the towns of Iserlohn and Witten were mentioned as examples. However, Iserlohn has never had more than 100,000 inhabitants (it has some 95,000 plus), and Witten has lost some inhabitants and now only has some 98,000 plus. Therefore, I deleted these two city names, since they are no longer (or have never been) appropriate examples.

I don't know why, but both Iserlohn and Witten are often incorrectly referred to as cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants - but only in the English Wikipedia. I've already read that in several other (English) articles before. I can understand that in the case of Witten, which has once been a major city, but I wonder whoever started to claim that Iserlohn was a major city. It has never been, and the assumption that it is will not become less wrong, if a wrong claim is quoted and referred to regularly ... ;) All the information that I give here can easily be checked by visiting these two city articles in the English or German Wikipedia.

--79.253.234.19 (talk) 16:08, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I've now added the city of Moers (in the list mentioned above), which has a little more than 100,000 inhabitants but belongs to the Kreis of Wesel.

---79.253.241.25 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 12:50, 27 November 2010 (UTC).

Untitled

I've moved this here from List of German districts after realising it's no longer a list, but only links to the two sublists. Those sublists would be too long to go on one page. There are however lots of links from other pages to List of German districts so I am leaving that page as a redirect. Hope that is OK. Saintswithin 11:03, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

District Parliament // Kreistag and District administration // Landrat

According to the article text: "The district parliament, the Kreistag, is a representative organ of the district and is responsible for local self-administration. It has only executive, but no legislative powers." [emphasis added] and "The district administration is chaired by an officer known as Landrat or Landrätin." It would seem to me that the latter is actually the executive, while the parliament (as deliberative assemblies tend to be) is the legislative. Is this a typographical error (Kreistag actually is legislative) or am I just mistaken and the Germans do things a little differently? Thnx hellenica 14:50, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

No, you are right. The "Kreistag" (the parliament (-tag) of the Land(kreis)) is the legislative, whereas the administration and the executive is with the Landrat/Landrätin. -- till we ☼☽ | Talk 18:57, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

This comment may come quite late after more than seven years, but the formula Kreistag = legislative, Landrat = executive is not correct from a legal point of view; in books on German local administrative law, it is often emphasised that the Kreistage (and the same goes for city councils) are themselves part of the executive, just like the Landrat - executive powers are shared between the two. Kreistage do not possess legislative powers, which, in Germany, are located at the state and federal level only. SchnitteUK (talk) 16:07, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

country vs district

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:German-speaking_Wikipedians'_notice_board#County_vs._district trying to reach a broad consensus as to use the term county (as used by the German foreign ministry) or the term district as currently used in a lot of articles of the German area term Landkreis. Agathoclea 11:04, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. A district is a county. Gerhard51 22:25, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:German-speaking Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 2#EU "official" translation of Kreis, where I got the terms now used from in the first place, in particular the link to the PDF from the EU, where they explicitly recommend translating this term as "district". The page should be moved back to its previous name. —Angr 08:59, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Angr. "District" is standard form across all German district-related articles. I see no reason to move this page to a different name, and all previous discussions we had favored "district" over "county" as the better term. We use "county" only as "territory ruled by a count". The page should be moved back. Kusma (talk) 19:22, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

We use "county" only as "territory ruled by a count" I don't think this accurately reflects common usage of the term "county" in Germany (when Germans are speaking English). It is perfectly common in Germany, in oral use as well as in writing, to use the word "county" in reference to the counties of, say, the United States or Ireland, which are not (and in the case of the U.S., have never in their history been) ruled by a count. SchnitteUK (talk) 16:11, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I've placed a note on Gerhard's user page asking if he'd make a comment, as I feel it would be a bit rude to change it back without asking, after he has gone to such trouble to change it. On the other hand, I also went to a lot of trouble to find a good translation :-) so I hope Gerhard will please look at the discussion, and perhaps also the definition of county, and note that "district" is the term used in all the other Wikipedia articles on the topic. Thanks, Saint|swithin 12:23, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

BTW, Gerhard, just as an illustration, you put a link to the Federal Ministry of the Interior which uses the word "county" once; if you look on their webpage you will find other examples where they use the word "district" - their use is not consistent, whereas the EU at least has an official document saying what to use by preference.

Fed. Ministry of Interior: "... whereas under the previous Federal law instructions the districts or cities outside districts had to take responsibility for this." [1] "während nach den bisherigen bundesrechtlichen Vorgaben hierfür zwingend die Kreise oder kreisfreien Städte zuständig waren." [2] Saint|swithin 12:46, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

By all rights the page should be moved back to its original state and if there is still a call for the move a RM should be filed. But most likely waiting for the authors reply will be better, as it will also involve a lot of reverting of other of his edits which I would only use rollback/undo with his consent - and using full editsummaries is a bit too much work for me right at this moment. Agathoclea 13:07, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I did a real double-take at the current lead sentence: "German counties, unusually named Districts...". That's bordering on the sense-free. If it's so unusual (which does not seem to be the case), why would one want to mention it as an alternative so prominently (and either way, it's an extremely awkward substitution). Pending some coordinated decision to which over to a consistent use of "county" over "district" across WP, I'd strongly favour a move-and-revert back. Alai 10:46, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Gerhard's English is excellent, of course, but here he must mean "rarely" or "in rare cases", although his opinion actually seems to be "not" :-). (NB: "unusually named" means "having an unusual name", which is why this sounds strange to native ears.) Saint|swithin 12:02, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

My native language is indeed a southern German dialect :-) Gerhard51 21:30, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

From Gerhard's talk page, please excuse me for taking the liberty ...

I already made no further changes after I noticed the mass of information behind the links, I only went at the peak. And I didn't find the discussion about the naming of the EU, sorry Saintswithin, no offends were intented. Anyway it is nice to find out that the EU developed naming conventions differing from those of the German government and outside of any practical use. I'll read the whole thing with some time about the weekend. Kind regards, Gerhard51 20:22, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by "outside of any practical use" Gerhard, but here are some more points to note:

• de:Grafschaft is the translation for the British county, and has a specific historical meaning in Europe, including Germany. (historical meaning at Deutsches Wörterbuch) This meaning may have been lost in the USA, but Wikipedia claims not to prefer American usage over British, and Germany has no special link to the USA, as it does (obviously) to Europe.
• The German government also uses "district", see above and | this Google search
• Dictionary translations:

- (= Stadtkreis, Landkreis) district; (= Gemeindewahlkreis) ward; (= Landeswahlkreis) constituency; Kreis Leipzig Leipzig District, the District of Leipzig Collins e-Großwörterbuch DE-EN

- (Bezirk) district Langenscheidt Muret-Sanders Großwörterbuch DE-EN

Saint|swithin 12:22, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, with the benefit of that gloss I can see what was meant -- apologies to Gerhard if my initial comments on his choice of words were somewhat harsh. But it seems to be far from rare for them to be called districts, and the above seems to confirm it being in fact the most common. I'll move it back later tonight if there are no urgent objections. (While it's admirable that a revert-fest didn't break up, it's swinging somewhat to the other extreme if we have to wait around for a week before editing it at all...) Alai 17:10, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

As I said earlier it should be done. It also involves reverting a few other edits, but gladly not too many as Gerhard kindly refrained to make more changes across all related articles and templates. Personally I'd like to point out that in the discussion about 1 1/2 years ago this section alludes to I initially favoured county, but the arguments were too compelling. Any change from that thoroughly discussed naming should go through WP:RM if Gerhard or someone else still feels county is the way to go (plus please consider the effort of changing an estimated 20000 articles and templates). Agathoclea 19:21, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

On a related note, I have begun a CFD on Category:Counties of Prussia at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 October 27#Category:Counties of Prussia. Olessi 17:28, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

No objections to move it back, it's anyway already done. Sorry for any inconvenience caused. I'm still stunned about the district. I discussed it this weekend and everybody was suprised too. The use of district in the future instead of county will cause changes in a heavy lot of online-documents and paper documents I know.Gerhard51 20:20, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

The official office of the "Deutscher Landkreistag" in Brussels calls itself "German County Association". So probably County is the apropriate term. District in the nomenclatura is the "Regierungsbezirk" which is a level higher in the self-governance level. The German County Association, I'm working for, would highly recomend if wikipedia could follow this nomenclatura. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.78.210.19 (talk) 15:53, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I know I'm very late to the game, but I want to add that linguistically, a "county" is a "Grafschaft" in Germany, as it derives from "count"/"Graf", as was stated previously. Now, there is actually a "Landkreis Grafschaft Bentheim" in Lower Saxony, and if "Landkreis" were to be translated as "county", then this would be "Bentheim County county" :-D ... 2001:16B8:322D:9400:156B:DF1:262:F203 (talk) 10:21, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

To reopen the discussion:

The correct description for a Landkreis seems to be County. The Deutscher Landkreistag calls itself German County Association. This really makes sense. In the context of the EU the federal system of Germany is structured as follows: 1) municipalities, which are local self-government bodies 2) counties, which are also local self-government bodies 3) districts, which are only an administrative level of the administration of the Bundesland, therefore they are better called “regional district” 4) federal states also called regions in the European context or land This wording is used in the European context by the German County Association, the German Association of Town and municipalities and the German Association of Cities which are the official representatives of the local government bodies. This Nomenclature makes a clear differentiation between the self-government bodies, which are granted by the German constitution and the merely administrative level of the regional district. According to this definition the kreisfreie Stadt should be called County Borough. The term County Borough, even though it is now historical, describes perfectly the fact that this is a city or town independent to a county and with the self-governance competencies of a county. Therefore sombody should change this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gereonmc (talk • contribs) 16:25, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

The source from the official webpage —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gereonmc (talk • contribs) 18:04, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I must admit, I was also surprised to see the term district used; that is usually the translation of the German word bezirk. In the United Kingdom at least, landkreis is usually translated as county and kreisfreie stadt as county borough. The term county borough is not historic, as Gereonmc suggests, and is still used in Wales. The historic term grafschaft would normally be translated as duchy or dukedom. In view of the confusion and contradictory translations, it might be better to use the original German term kreise. Skinsmoke (talk) 03:03, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Bezirk was the term for districts in the GDR and have since been abolished. German election districts are now called Wahlkreise.

I would say these Kreise are district, not counties, but amts are counties. Do you even know what you said Gereonmc? "which are only an administrative level of the Bundesland", yes exactly, that is what a Kreis is, an administrative division of a German state (administrative level = administrative district). But that's not the same as a regional district, which pursely serves as geographic division. If you think a Kreis is a county, according to your source, what would be the district of a German state? There is no administrative level below a state and above the Kreise (except maybe for the Regierungsbezirke in some but not the majority of German states and hence not reconized by the EU). Chris.usnames (talk) 21:22, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

References

Factual accuracy

The article suggests that the competencies and responsibilities of the Kreise (sing. Kreis), whether you would like to call them districts or counties, are the same allover Germany. Since the laws on the responsibilities of the municipalities, including the Kreise, differ from Land to Land, the list cannot be correct. Needless to say that the state laws on municipalities vary very much, since different states apply completely different concepts, and they are subject to a lot of change, too. Just to mention the example of North Rhine-Westphalia, that state had exactly copied the British administrative system into its own laws, but later on developed something completely different. Thus, someone who is competent on this subject should revise the article. Is there any German local politician who can write in proper English and would do this job? --DanSchultz (talk) 12:18, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Good luck finding one who is willing to do that? 3 years later, nobody has so far shown up. Local politicians don't even care about the jurisdiction they are supposed to govern, so why would they bother to write on such an article? The problem is that even if a German city has charter, that doesn't mean anything about what they can do. Increasingly in last years power is taken away from local government and given to higher level government. And governments of the same level get merged. They are even talking about merging states. I don't know what these crazy Germans think a federal government (I heard it's mandated by the German constitution) but this mess of a country more looks like a central government with all these changes dictated by the German administration. So unlike in the US, in Germany you cannot say for all eternity what the responsibilities of the different levels of government are. I would write "their functions and responsibilities may differ and be subject to change" (after every election). Chris.usnames (talk) 21:45, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

county vs district

The office of the association of the German Landkreise (der deutsche Landkreistag) calls itself German County Association. Therfore it would be logic to take this expression. Who is in charge of nameming hisself if not the association in question? District is used in the official nomeclatura as the word for Regierungsbezirk. As the Regierungsbezirk is part of the Länder administration whereas the counties are part of the local self government, there are differences which are crucial to understand the german federal system. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.78.210.19 (talk) 14:32, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Your logic is questionable, since anybody can start "the Union States of America, Inc." and be it the association of "the Independent State of California, LLC" and "1st State of Delaware Corporation." That doesn't mean that "the Union States of America" are an association of states. The same way would it be unreasonable to say that the "German County Association" is an association of counties. But where actually did you find the term "German County Association" - it's not on their website and it doesn't show up in search engines. So scrap all of what you said, you were begging the question. Chris.usnames (talk) 22:35, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

The Deutscher Landkreistag is not just any sort of private association with a fancy made-up name. It does represent all districts/counties in Germany and has been given, by its members, an explicit mandate to represent the interests of the districts/counties vis-à-vis state governments, the federal government and the public at large. It is not an overly powerful institution, but when it comes to finding someone speaking on behalf of the districts/counties, it's the best thing you will find. And it does use the name "German County Association" itself when publishing documents in English. See here. SchnitteUK (talk) 22:26, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

But "district" is official standard in EU, see f.e.NUTS- Official documents and translations use "district". I don´t know why "Deutscher Landkreis Tag" uses "county". district is correct. Landkreis = district, Regierungsbezirk (only in some Bundesländer) = government / administrativ districts /regions (ManfredV (talk) 19:44, 14 January 2014 (UTC))

Well, that is precisely what we are discussing here: Which is the correct usage? You say district, I say county. NUTS is a document for a very specific and narrow purpose, namely statistics; it's certainly not an authoritative source on local government in Germany, so I don't see a reason to find that cite more binding than the usage of the county association itself. SchnitteUK (talk) 14:02, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Besides, the translation Kreis = district in the NUTS context you link to appears to be something Wikipedia itself came up with. Here's the NUTS document from the Eurostat website itself. I couldn't find an instance in it where "Kreis" in German is explicitly translated as "district" in English; the document uses "Kreis" as a loan word without translating it. SchnitteUK (talk) 14:08, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Circular error

I took the liberty of editing the "circles" out of the article. This is silliness to the max.

I’m German by birth and lived in the USA for 30 years. I can assure you that nobody in Germany thinks of a circular object with an equidistant radius when the term “Kreis” or “Landkreis” comes up in an administrative or political context.

Just like a “circle” in English, a “Kreis” can take on many meanings in German, more in the German than in the English language.

My trusted Leo English-German dictionary translates “Kreis” as follows:

• circle (as in, well, a circular shape)
• circle (as in a circle of people, such as "inner circle")
• circuit (as in a circuit of people or interests, "the fashion circuit")
• circuit (as in electric circuit)
• county
• crease (in cricket or hockey)
• cycle
• district
• ring
• sphere (not as a ball, as in "sphere of influence")

Just like the English “circle”, which can mean anything from circle of acquaintances to aiming circle, the German “Kreis” will derive its true meaning from the context.

Sorry, but in this context, a German speaker will cringe when he or she reads “This article is about the "Circles" (Kreise) of Germany.” A charitable assumption would be that the article was written by Google translate. Why not "spheres" or "creases" of Germany?

As far as the big “district” vs “county” controversy goes: From an American perspective, I would tend much more towards “county.” It has a function similar to a German “Kreis” or “Landkreis” (it’s the same.) “District” evokes urban associations in me, as in “financial district” or “garment district.” But other than the silly circles, neither “county” nor “district” will awaken strong emotions in me.

I also took out that the equivalent of Regierungsbezirk "in other nations is the county or arrondissement." Not always true. A "Regierungsbezirk Oberbayern" and a "2e arrondissement" of Paris are not equivalent at all. Which goes to show that the article could use some references.

The "Reichskreis" of the Holy Roman Empire could go also. It has nothing to do with the topic at all. Any emotional attachments?

Dankeschön. BsBsBs (talk) 08:49, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Hey, was this "circular error" discussion written by a single person, since it only contains one signature? Maybe this person should take one position in the discussion only. Ok, here are my thoughts. Yeah, circles is silly, but circuit is just fine (as in the 8th Circuit of Appeals of the US). A meaning of district in English is not only limited to urban zoning. Other kinds of districts in America are for example school districts, congressional or state election districts, or judicial districts. District fits better to Kreis, I would apply the term county to the amts or Verwaltungsgemeinschaften.Chris.usnames (talk) 22:11, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

The subject has long been discussed and sourced. The translation we use is district. Agathoclea (talk) 08:08, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Of course, district is correct.

1. The European Union has standards, and they use "district" for Landkreis NUTS

2. "district" is BE and "county" AE, and it is international standard that BE is used in official documents and translations, so fe. EU-countries use BE

3. German authorities and administrations usually use "district" in english translations. I don´t know why Deutscher Landkreistag use "county", but "district" is correct in official use ManfredV (talk) 21:16, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

“District court”

The section district court in the article creates the impression that the Landgerichte (called “district courts” in the article) are strongly connected to the Landkreise or Kreise (districts) of Germany. I'm not aware of such a connection. There are about 116 Landgerichte in Germany but 295 Landkreise and Kreise (rural districts or districts) plus a little more than 100 Stadtkreise or kreisfreie Städte (urban districts or district independent towns). I propose to delete the section “district court”. – Ocolon (talk) 21:15, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree. "Landgericht" is not connected to political districts. Is it correct to translate "Landgericht" as "district court"? I don´t know. But I think "district court" is more similar to "Amtsgericht", but structure of german justice is not the same as political structure. Many capitals of districts have an "Amtsgericht" or "Landgericht", but not all and many "Landgerichte" are responsible for more districts. F.e there´s an "Amtsgericht" Fürth for both urban and rural district and an "Amtsgericht" Nürnberg for N. urban district. And "Landgericht Nürnberg-Fürth" is for all of them and some districts more.ManfredV (talk) 20:41, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I've removed the section from the article. – Ocolon (talk) 09:00, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

In fact the Landkreise are very closely related to the Amtsgerichte (though urban and rural district of the same name usually go together as one Amtsgericht, and some very few fusioned Landkreise have retained the Amtsgerichte of more than one of the constituent former-counties); the Landgerichtsbezirk typically is in between the Regierungsbezirk and the Landkreis, right in the middle, though sometimes it cuts Regierungsbezirk-borders.--2001:A61:2091:2201:1195:55E5:1213:9BE6 (talk) 17:53, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

In history districts and Amtsgerichte were closely related until 1945 or even the 1970ies in old FRG. But since then both sides had some changes. Smaller districts were merged to larger ones. Esp. after german reunification a lot of changes happened in former GDR since 1990. Justice also made some reforms. There are still many Amtsgerichte which are (more or less) responsible for a district area. But there are also large districts which have more Amtsgerichte in their region. And Amtsgerichtsbezirke are often not accurate to district area. F.e. in district Nürnberger Land we have Amtsgerichte Lauf and Hersbruck (both former districts). But Amtsgericht Nürnberg (N. is an urban district and not part of rural district) is register court and court for insolvencies in Nürnberg City, Nürnberger Land and Schwabach district. Another: In Südwestpfalz region we have Amtsgericht Pirmasens (responsible for P. urban district and eastern and central parts of Südwestpfalz district) and Amtsgericht Zweibrücken (for Z. urban district and western parts of Südwestpfalz). But Amtsgericht Zweibrücken is also register court for Amtsgericht Landstuhl (part of Kaiserslautern district). There are many more examples. So many Amtsgerichtsbezirke include the same area as rural and urban districts (but not accurate) but many others don't (or do no more) since reforms in political and justice structures. ManfredV (talk) 10:24, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

B roads

B roads are bundesstrassen. then you get Landstrassen(literally country roads) and then you get Kreisstrassen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.186.60.243 (talk) 19:27, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Fixed, thank you for pointing this out. Looks like the exact meaning of B road is differing from country to country. I also moved your comment - new sections are usually added at the bottom of talkpages. GermanJoe (talk) 19:38, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

administration level

Some german states have "Regierungsbezirke" (government districts / administrative districs): Bavaria, Hesse, Baden-Württemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia. These are between states and districts.ManfredV (talk) 17:03, 27 February 2018 (UTC)