Talk:Counties of Albania

Untitled

no prefecture 2, but 2 prefectures 5?

Good catch. The 5 higher up should be a 2. Dori | Talk 14:27, Feb 20, 2004 (UTC)

Shall we move to Prefectures? Prefecture/Districts that's the way it is done on German, Netherland, Swedish WP. Albanian uses (as said in de:WP) official qark/qarku, but often prefekturë/prefektura. I will do the move if there are no objections. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 23:04, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

PD/PS?

On what sources is based the map that shows PD/PS differences on each prefecture? I doubt PD leads over so many prefectures, especially in the south. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.255.147.60 (talk) 18:41, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

First and second level

@Kj1595: There are often several ways of describing things, and sometimes that causes misunderstandings. Regarding the levels of administration in a country, they can basically be described in two completely opposite ways, "top-down" or "bottom-up". In a top-down description, you start with the country, explain what is the top-level administrative division, then divide these again, possibly further down in more levels. In a bottom-up description, you start with some sort of atomic unit, then group them together in larger areas, possibly further up in more levels. Both these ways of description are valid, but you cannot use both of them at the same time.

As I understand it, with help from Google translate, §5 of the Albanian law on local administration starts by describing the municipalities (bashki) as the basic unit of local administration. (Both Google translate and different dictionaries indicate that "basic unit" is a closer translation than "first level" of njësi bazë in the original legal text.) Then it describes the counties (qark) as a second level unit. This makes it a bottom-up description, which is fine.

Wikipedia, however, is consistently using a top-down description when they use the terms "first-level", "second-level". This is described explicitly in the last paragraph of the lede section in the article Administrative division: For clarity and convenience the standard neutral reference for the largest administrative subdivision of a country is called the "first-level administrative division" or "first administrative level". Next smaller is called "second-level administrative division" or "second administrative level". The same thing is shown in a more concrete way in the List of administrative divisions by country.

You can, of course, insist on using the terms "first-level", "second-level" differently for Albania than for the rest of the countries in the world. The problem is that readers will be confused, and I am not sure that will do any good for the articles about Albania's administrative levels. --T*U (talk) 20:50, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the lengthy response. The issue here is that Albania's administrative divisions are organized different than most countries. Where a county which would be the equivalent of a state or region has more governing powers and decision making than local municipalities, in Albania it's the opposite. The Municipalities run everything on the local level. Counties are simply geographic regions. In fact, there has been talk in recent years of abolishing counties and creating 3-4 regional centers. This has yet to materialize but it's to show that counties have a rather meaningless status in local governance. They used to be more important prior to the territorial reform changes of 2014 but currently they are just geographic entities with no administrative powers. That is why I recommend to show them as 2nd level units of governance to reflect their actual status. It's about accuracy and facts afterall, even though it may confuse some readers. Kj1595 (talk) 05:40, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kj1595: I still think you are on the wrong track. The situation you describe, with municipalities being the basic and most important local level, is definitely not special for Albania. Federal states aside, it is actually quite the normal situation. Unitary states may have zero, one, two or even three levels between the state level and the municipality level (see NUTS for examples). The possible abolition of some of these levels is or has been discussed in many countries, either in order to make larger units or in order to abolish levels completely. However, the "status" of the different levels has nothing to do with the way "first-level", "second-level" is consistently used in Wikipedia. If it is accuracy and facts you are looking for, it does not help much to use the terms in a way that gives a false impression.

I would suggest that we need to find another way to explain to the readers the relative importance of the administrative levels than using terms that mean something else in the rest of Wikipedia. Calling the municipality level "basic", "primary", "main level" or even "most important level" (if that can be sourced) could solve this; calling it "first-level" is imho counterproductive. Also, please explain how you would solve this in List of administrative divisions by country. --T*U (talk) 08:45, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

What is the definition of first-level? Kj1595 (talk) 09:13, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kj1595: That would be as I quoted from the article Administrative division: the standard neutral reference for the largest administrative subdivision of a country is called the "first-level administrative division" or "first administrative level". --T*U (talk) 09:53, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

I think it is better to stick strictly to the definition that the law makes despite the confusion it can create. In fact it is a common way even in wikipedia, for example the case of Greece that has the same (more or less) definition. The regions in Albania have practically little or no authority, they are often useless. They only matter during parliamentary elections (in local elections they have no function at all) and in cases of civil emergencies during natural disasters such as floods or earthquakes.Bes-ARTTalk 11:01, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

The Greece-related article you refer to, has room for a detailed explanation that helps avoid confusion. Nevertheless, the article Municipalities and communities of Greece speaks about the lowest level of government (while I would prefer "the basic level"), the article Administrative regions of Greece explicitly says first-level administrative entities complying with standard usage in Wikipedia. Furthermore, in the templates for first-level and second-level articles, Greece follows the standard pattern. Also, I am still interested in how you would solve Albania in List of administrative divisions by country if you insist on following the law definitions. And by the way, the law does not really say "first level", but "basic unit", which is not exactly the same. --T*U (talk) 11:34, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

It is called "basic unit" because in Article 108 of the Constitution of the Republic of Albania are considered as such. While other units are said to be "determined by law", in the sense of inferior laws. I can agree with the definitions you give but in the article it must be defined that the basic unit is the Municipality for the fact that this is recognized by the constitution, and two laws, the one on administrative division and the law on local self-government. If we construct the article to give the feeling that the Municipality is a subdivision of the County it can be misinterpreted as they may have dependence on them and then the confusion would be greater than in the case we were discussing.Bes-ARTTalk 12:22, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kj1595 and Bes-ART: Suggested text:

The counties of Albania (Albanian: Qarqet e Shqipërisë) are the largest administrative subdivisions of Albania. The 12 counties are composed of 61 municipalities, which are the basic territorial entities for local administration, consisting of 373 administrative units.

This way we avoid completely the conflicting use of "first-level", "second-level". We would have to keep this article in the first-level template, though, in order to harmonise with other countries (like Greece) and with List of administrative divisions by country. --T*U (talk) 12:56, 4 November 2020 (UTC) (Link to Administrative divisions of Albania added to proposal. --T*U (talk) 14:11, 4 November 2020 (UTC))

Agree, even tho I think the article need improvement by adding more content. This article, the one of Municipalities of Albania and Administrative divisions of Albania need all improvements and more explaining content to make the reader better understand it.Bes-ARTTalk 13:49, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Sounds right to me. I would, however, concentrate the efforts on Administrative divisions of Albania, which would be the main article for people who want to know more about the structure itself. I think this article is more for people looking for more specific info about the counties. I have added a link to the Adm.div. article in my proposal. How about Kj1595, are you happy with this proposal, too (including the need to develop the Adm.div. article? --T*U (talk) 14:11, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm fine with the proposed changes. Kj1595 (talk) 21:46, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Counties?

"Counties (Albanian: qarqe or qarqet), also sometimes known as prefectures (prefekturë)"

They are NEVER called "counties"! 79.106.203.67 (talk) 12:21, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

• It looks like you're right, I don't know where they got "county" from. Look at a Google Ngram comparison, for example between usage of "Tirana District" and usage (none) of "Tirana County" in books written in English. Largoplazo (talk) 12:46, 6 September 2023 (UTC)