Župa

A župa (or zhupa, županija) is a historical type of administrative division in Central Europe and the Balkans, that originated in medieval Slavic culture, often translated into "county" or "district". It was mentioned for the first time in the 8th century. It was initially used by the South and West Slavs, denoting various territorial units of which the leader was the župan. In modern Croatian and Slovenian, the term župa also means an ecclesiastical parish.

The word "župa" (Bulgarian and Serbian Жупа; adopted into Hungarian: ispán and rendered in Greek as ζουπανία (zoupania, "land ruled by a župan") is derived from Slavic. It's medieval Latin equivalent was comitatus. It is mostly translated into "county" or "district". According to Kmietowicz, it seems that the territorial organization had been created in Polish territories before the Slav Migrations. Some Slavic nations changed its name into "opole", "okolina" and "vierw", but it has survived in župan. Some scholars consider the word's older meaning was "open area in the valley". This interpretation is confirmed by the Bulgarian župa (tomb), Polish zupa and Ukrainian župa (salt mine), and Old Slavonic župište (tomb). As such, the Proto-Slavic *župa wouldn't derive from *gheu-p- (with *gheu- meaning "bend, distort"), yet from Indo-European *g(h)eup-/*gheub- meaning "cavity, pit", which derives from Nostratic *gopa meaning "hollow, empty". However, Albert Bruckner suggested the opposite evolution; župa as a back formation from title župan (for the etymology see corresponding article), which is a borrowing from Iranian languages (*fsu-pāna, "shepherd").

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