Ilçe

The 81 provinces of Turkey are divided into 957 districts (ilçeler; sing. ilçe). In the early Turkish Republic and in the Ottoman Empire, the corresponding unit was the kaza.

The district bears the same name as the district capital (with the exception of the district of Antakya (in Hatay)). A district may cover both rural and urban areas. One district of a province is designated the central district (merkez ilçe) from which the district is administered. The central district is administered by an appointed provincial deputy governor and other the non-central districts by an appointed sub-governor (kaymakam) from their district center (ilçe merkezi) municipality. In central districts the district center municipality also serves as the provincial center municipality. Both the deputy governor and sub-governors are responsible to the province governor (vali).

Municipalities (belediye) can be created in, and are subordinate to, the districts in which they are located. Each district has at least one municipality (belde) in the district center from which both the municipal government for that municipality and the district government is administered. A municipality is headed by an elected mayor (belediye başkanı) who administers the local government for defined municipal matters. More and more settlements which are outside of district centers have municipalities as well, usually because their population requires one. A municipality's borders usually correspond to that of the urban settlement it covers, but may also include some undeveloped land.

Villages (köy) outside of municipalities and quarters or neighborhoods (mahalle) within municipalities are the lowest level of local government, and are also the most numerous unit of local government in Turkey. They elect muhtars to care for specific administrative matters such as residence registration. The designation slightly differs (köy muhtarı for village muhtar, mahalle muhtarı for quarter muhtar) and the tasks, which are largely similar but are adapted to their locality.

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