Glossary Administration

On an administrative level the Austrian Bezirke function between the provinces and the local communities and their tasks lie on a federal as well as on a provincial administrative level. The head is the district chief administrator or Bezirkshauptmann/frau who is appointed by the provincial government. District administrative authorities are responsible for the local administrative needs of their citizens (for example, the issuing of driving licences and ID cards).

According to German communal law a Landkreis or district is a regional statutory corporation. It serves as the administrative unit for a number of towns and communities. The Landkreise or districts are responsible for services such as waste disposal, hospitals, vehicle registration and the issuing of driving licences. They also serve a political function within the framework of the Kreistag, the district parliament, which, like the provincial parliament, and depending on the federal province, is elected every 4-6 years (in Bavaria every 6 years). The Landrat, district council, executes political policies. Towns with more than 100.000 inhabitants (in some federal provinces also smaller towns) do not generally belong to a Landkreis but are districts in themselves. In this case they are referred to as kreisfreie Städte, district-independent towns, or Stadtkreise, district towns.

The function of the district towns is to work on a level between the cantons and the local communities. As a rule they correspond to natural geographical regions and are also called Ämter (Canton Lucern), Amtsbezirk (Canton Berne) or district (Romandie) or distretto (Canton Tessin and Italian Bünden). In general the districts serve as an administrative unit and judicial organisation. The Cantons Schwyz and Graubünden - in other words, peripheral areas covered by the Tyrol Atlas - have their own legal status and as such also have their own taxation rights.

A district community (It. comprensorio) is an administrative unit that is designed to co-ordinate on a level between the communities and the province, above all in the co-ordination of cultural, social, economic and ecological questions arising within the communities. Furthermore, their tasks are assigned by both the province and the communities, e.g. social services and environmental questions. The district community plays a similar role to that of the Bezirke or districts in Austria and grew out of valley communities. In mountainous regions these were based on permanent interest groups which organised and furthered the voluntary co-operation of member communities. In 1991 the valley communities were re-named district communities and were given the status of statutory corporations.