Atlas of first-level administrative divisions
This Atlas of first-level administrative divisions shows maps of current first-level administrativesubdivisions of sovereign states. Almost every country in the world has administrative divisions, which have different levels. For instance a country may be divided into states or provinces, then further subdivided into counties or municipalities. Some countries have as many as four or more levels of administrative divisions, for instance China has provinces divided into prefectures, further divided into counties and then into townships. This gallery shows maps of the largest administrative divisions, also called 'first level' or 'top-order' divisions of each country. For further information, refer to the accompanying article linked to below each image. For maps on the lower levels of administrative divisions, see the respective articles on the Table of administrative country subdivisions by country. Note that in some cases it is not clear which is the top level; some divisions may have limited use in government, such as the Regions of France or the Autonomous communities of Spain, and the Departments of France or Provinces of Spain may be seen as the first level. Also it may be unclear in some countries which are unions or federal states; countries or large areas may be seen as the primary level administrative division such as the w:Home Nations of the w:United Kingdom rather than its counties or the w:Walloon Region and w:Flemish Region of w:Belgium rather than its provinces. This gallery presents a graphical version of the first level of administrative divisions as listed in the accompanying table.
Maps are arranged by continent below. (For transcontinental countries, map is in the continent which the largest area of the country is located in)
The WIKIMEDIA COMMONS Atlas of the World is an organized and commented collection of geographical, political and historical maps available at Wikimedia Commons. The main page is therefore the portal to maps and cartography on Wikimedia. That page contains links to entries by country, continent and by topic as well as general notes and references.
Every entry has an introduction section in English. If other languages are native and/or official in an entity, introductions in other languages are added in separate sections. The text of the introduction(s) is based on the content of the Wikipedia encyclopedia. For sources of the introduction see therefore the Wikipedia entries linked to. The same goes for the texts in the history sections.
Historical maps are included in the continent, country and dependency entries.
The status of various entities is disputed. See the content for the entities concerned.
The maps of former countries that are more or less continued by a present-day country or had a territory included in only one or two countries are included in the atlas of the present-day country. For example the Ottoman Empire can be found in the Atlas of Turkey.