Sum (country subdivision)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sum, sumu, sumon, and sumuud are a type of administrative district used in Mongolia, Russia, and China.
[edit] Mongolia
A sum (mongolian сум is the second level administrative subdivision below the Aimags (provinces), roughly comparable to a County in the USA. There are 331 sums in Mongolia.
On average, each sum administers a territory of 4,200 km2 with about 5,000 inhabitants, primarily nomadic herders. It has total revenues of 120 Million Tögrög, 90 % of which come out of national subsidies.
Each sum is again subdivided into bags. Most bags are of an entirely virtual nature. Their purpose is to sort the families of nomads in the sum into groups, without a permanent human settlement.
Some sources give the plural form Somon in place of the correct Mongolian plural Sumd or Sumuud.
[edit] China
In Inner Mongolia, a sumu (Chinese: 苏木; pinyin: sūmù) is a township-level political/administrative division. The sumu division is equivalent to a township but is unique to Inner Mongolia. It is therefore larger than a village and smaller than a banner (the Inner Mongolia equivalent of the county-level division).
Sumu whose population is predominated by ethnic minorities are designated ethnic sumu – parallel with the ethnic township in the rest of China.
[edit] Russian Federation
In Russia, a sumon is an administrative division of the Tuva Republic, and sumuud is that of the Buryat Republic. Both are describing the Russian term "selsoviet".