Kaza or caza (Arabic: قضاء, qaḍāʾ, pronounced [qɑˈd̪ˤɑːʔ], plural: أقضية, aqḍiyah, pronounced [ˈɑqd̪ˤijɑ]; Ottoman Turkish: kaza), meaning "jurisdiction" and often translated "district," is a term for a second-level administrative division in Iraq and Lebanon and for a third-level administrative division in Jordan and the former Ottoman Empire.
In the Ottoman Empire, it was an administrative district subject to the jurisdiction of a judge (qadi) and governed by a kaymakam. It was a subdivision of a sanjak and corresponded roughly to a city with its surrounding villages. The Ottoman pronunciation gives the usual English forms, kaza or caza, but one also encounters qadaa, qaza, and qazaa from the Arabic and kadiluk from the Turkish.
The kaza was also formerly a second-level administrative division in Syria, but this is now called a mintaqah. The early Republic of Turkey continued to use the term kaza, but renamed them to ilçe in the 1920s.
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