| Lithuania |
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The territory of Lithuania is divided into 10 counties (Lithuanian: singular apskritis, plural apskritys), all named after their capitals. The counties are divided into 60 municipalities (Lithuanian: singular savivaldybė, plural savivaldybės): 9 city municipalities, 43 district municipalities and 8 municipalities. Each municipality is then divided into elderates (Lithuanian: singular seniūnija, plural seniūnijos). This division was created in 1994 and slightly modified in 2000.
Counties are administered by county governors (Lithuanian: singular – apskrities viršininkas, plural – apskrities viršininkai) who are appointed by the central government in Vilnius. Their primary duty is to ensure that the municipalities obey the laws and the Constitution of Lithuania. They do not have great powers vested in them, and so it is suggested that 10 counties are too much for Lithuania as the two smallest counties administer only four municipalities. There is a proposal to replace the counties with four or five lands, a new administrative unit, that would be decided according to the ethnographic regions of Lithuania and based on the 5 major cities with the population more than 100,000. On 1 July 2010, the county administrations were abolished[1], and since that date, counties remains as the territorial and statistical units.
Modern apskritys should not be confused with apskritys that existed in the independent Lithuania during the interwar period. At that time Lithuania had a two-step administrative division: apskritys that were subdivided into valsčius. Lithuania now has a three-step division: counties, municipalities, and elderates (apkritys, savivaldybės, and seniūnijos). See subdivisions of Lithuania for details.
This map shows counties as well as municipalities. Eight city municipalities and two municipalities are marked by numbers:
| # | County (media help) |
Capital | Area in km² (rank) |
Population in 2001 census[2] |
Population in 2011 census (rank)[2] |
Population per km² (rank) |
Municipalities |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alytus County (listen • info) |
Alytus | 5,425 (6) | 187,769 | 158,571 (7) | 29.3 (8) | |
| 2 | Kaunas County (listen • info) |
Kaunas | 8,089 (3) | 701,529 | 612,532 (2) | 75.7 (2) | |
| 3 | Klaipėda County (listen • info) |
Klaipėda | 5,209 (7) | 385,768 | 337,286 (3) | 64.8 (3) | |
| 4 | Marijampolė County (listen • info) |
Marijampolė | 4,463 (8) | 188,634 | 160,978 (6) | 36.1 (4) | |
| 5 | Panevėžys County (listen • info) |
Panevėžys | 7,881 (4) | 299,990 | 254,218 (5) | 32.3 (7) | |
| 6 | Šiauliai County (listen • info) |
Šiauliai | 8,540 (2) | 370,096 | 305,792 (4) | 35.8 (5) | |
| 7 | Tauragė County (listen • info) |
Tauragė | 4,411 (9) | 134,275 | 109,790 (10) | 24.9 (9) | |
| 8 | Telšiai County (listen • info) |
Telšiai | 4,350 (10) | 179,885 | 153,388 (8) | 35.3 (6) | |
| 9 | Utena County (listen • info) |
Utena | 7,201 (5) | 185,962 | 150,598 (9) | 20.9 (10) | |
| 10 | Vilnius County (listen • info) |
Vilnius | 9,729 (1) | 850,064 | 810,651 (1) | 83.3 (1) |
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