Federal district
Federal districts are subdivisions of a
federal system of government. Often, these districts are not one of the countries' component
subdivisions, and should not be confused with them, but are rather separate entities under the direct control of the federal government. The seat of the federal government is often located in a Federal District, so that no single individual component can exercise undue influence over federal affairs.
In addition to the six self-governing states (
New South Wales,
Queensland,
South Australia,
Tasmania,
Victoria and
Western Australia), the Australian federation contains two self-governing territories, the
Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and the
Northern Territory. The ACT was created specifically to be the home of the federal capital,
Canberra, in order to avoid situating the new nation's capital in either of New South Wales and Victoria, the two most populous states at the time of federation.
Although the ACT has
its own Chief Minister and
its own legislature, the
Federal Parliament retains the right to over-rule ACT legislation. The ACT Parliament acts as a municipal government for the city of Canberra. The
Governor-General of Australia exercises certain rights that in the states would be exercised by a state Governor and in the Northern Territory by the Administrator, such as the power to issue writs for elections.
At a federal level, the ACT elects two members of the
House of Representatives and two
Senators. Both Senators are elected at every election for the Senate, unlike the States, who elect half of their senators at every normal Senate election.
The
seat of the U.S. federal government in
Washington is a federal district known as the
District of Columbia. In addition, the
U.S. government has several other kinds of "federal districts" which are not specifically related to a capital city:
*The
federal court system divides each state, plus the District of Columbia and
Puerto Rico, into one or more
federal judicial districts; a
United States District Court and a
United States Bankruptcy Court are located in each. There are also
federal judicial circuits, each consisting of a group of states (except for the District of Columbia Circuit which consists only of the federal district); Puerto Rico and the
United States territorial courts are also assigned to circuits. Each circuit has a
United States court of appeals.
*The U.S.
central bank, the
Federal Reserve, consists of twelve banks located around the country; each of these banks serves a Federal Reserve district.
The term
Distrito Federal, meaning "Federal District" in both the
Spanish and
Portuguese languages, is used to refer to:
* Argentine Federal District, today the
Autonomous city of
Buenos Aires*
Brazilian Federal District*
Mexican Federal District*
Venezuelan Capital DistrictIn
India, the capital city,
New Delhi, is located in the
National Capital Territory of Delhi.
There are seven
Federal districts of Russia, which function as an additional administrative layer between other subdivisions and the
Russian Federation as a whole. But these have nothing to do with the territory surrounding a capital city.
