Districts of Slovakia
The districts of Slovakia are administrative units known as okres in the Slovak language. It is a second-tier territorial administrative unit, below a Region in standing, and superior to a municipality. Each district contains at least several municipalities.
The cities of Bratislava and Košice are the only cities in Slovakia divided into internal urban districts, with five in Bratislava, and four in Košice. These urban districts are then further divided into smaller boroughs.
All other districts are larger in size and also include rural areas, and rural as well as urban municipalities. Each of these more typical districts has an urban centre serving as the seat of the district, usually the largest town of a given district. Rural municipalities are not legally allowed to become district seats.
Characteristics
Several districts form a "region". One district, on the other hand, consists of several "municipalities", which in turn consist of "cadastral areas".Districts have been units of state administration in Slovakia since its creation with a few interruptions, e. g. the period from 2004 to late 2013. Today, each district is administered by a "district office". Since late 2013, there have also been some special district offices responsible not for the territory of a district, but for the territory of a region. These are called "district office at the seat of a region".
In the period between 2004 and late 2013, the district offices were abolished and replaced by "circuit offices", which were usually responsible for several districts.
Slovakia currently has 79 districts, with the capital city of Bratislava being divided into 5 districts and the city of Košice into 4 districts. The districts are named after their administrative seats, colloquially known as "district towns". The district town is commonly the largest town in the district, although exceptions exist, such as Ilava District where the district town Ilava is far overshadowed by the much larger Dubnica nad Váhom, or Košice-okolie District, the seat of which is not part of the district at all, instead being subdivided into four of its own districts.