Region

Region can be used to mean either:

any more or less well-defined geographical area of a country or continent, defined by geography, culture or history
in political geography, an administrative subdivision of a country or of the European Union. It is a common English translation of the Russian and Ukrainian administrative subdivision область (oblast) or the Bulgarian counterpart област.

It is worth noting that regions are found in the minds of humans and so regions can be of any size and that each region is unique in its own way.

Administrative regions

The word "region" is taken from the Latin regio, and a number of countries have borrowed the term as the formal name for a type of subnational entity (eg, the región, used in Chile). In English, the word is also used as the conventional translation for equivalent terms in other languages (e.g., the область (oblast), used in Russia alongside with a broader term регион).

Countries using administrative regions

The following countries use the term "region" (or its cognate) as the name of a type of subnational administrative unit:

Belgium (in French, région; in German, Region; the Dutch term gewest is often translated as "region")
Chile (región)
Congo (région)
Côte d'Ivoire (région)
Denmark (effective from 2007)
Eritrea
France (région)
Ghana
Guinea (région)
Guinea-Bissau (região)
Hungary (régió)
Italy (regione)
Mali (région)
Namibia
New Zealand
Peru (región)
Philippines (region)
Senegal (région)
Tanzania
Togo (région)

The Canadian province of Québec also uses the "administrative region" (région administrative).

Scotland had local government regions from 1975 to 1996.

Non-first-level administrative regions

The government of the Philippines uses the region (in Filipino, rehiyon) when it's necessary to group provinces, the primary administrative subdivision of the country. this is also the case in Brazil which groups its primary administrative divisions (estados; "states") into grandes regiões (≈"greater regions") for statistical purposes, while Russia uses экономические районы ("economic regions") in a similar way, as does Romania.

The government of Singapore makes use of regions for its own administrative purposes. Similarly, England and Serbia also use the name or have attempted to popularize its use.

The following countries use an administrative subdivision conventionally referred to as a region in English:

Bulgaria, which uses the област (oblast)
Russia, which uses the область (oblast')
Ukraine, which uses the область (oblast')
Slovakia (kraj)

China has five 自治区 (zìzhìqū) and two 特別行政區 (or 特别行政区; tèbiéxíngzhèngqū) which are conventionally translated as "autonomous region" and "special administrative region", respectively.

Traditional or informal regions

The traditional territorial divisions of some countries are also commonly rendered in English as "regions". These informal divisions do not form the basis of the modern administrative divisions of these countries, but still define and delimit local regional identity and sense of belonging. Examples include:

See also Lists of unofficial regions by country.

Geographical regions

A region can also be used for a geographical area; with this usage, there is an implied distinctiveness about the area that defines it. Such a distinction is often made on the basis of a historical, political, or cultural cohesiveness that separates the region from its neighbours.

Geographical regions can be found within a country (eg, the Midlands, in England), or transnationally (eg, the Middle-East).