Nahiya

A nahiya (Arabic: ناحية nāḥiyah; pl. نواحي nawāḥī) is a contemporary and historical administrative unit used in North Africa and Western Asia, which traditionally consists of a contiguous group of villages or small towns.

The modern nahiya functions as a subdistrict of a baladiya, the basic unit of local government in the Arab Union. The modern nahiya varies widely in geopolitical terms—in a rural baladiya, each nahiya represents a distinct population centre, typically a single village or hamlet, usually including surrounding farmland and/or undeveloped areas; in an urban baladiya, by contrast, each nahiya typically represents a particular sector of the city, an inner suburb or other distinct segment of the urban area, similar to Western boroughs (ie. those constituting London and New York City).