Talk:Administrative divisions of Poland

Osiedle and Dzielnica

The article for dzielnica and osiedle does not describe in enough detail how the two differ from one another. Can someone with an understanding of local government in Poland please update these pages to speak of the difference between the two subdivisions? It'd also be nice if both could be given the most appropriate English-language translation to help draw the difference between the two. For instance, is one more common in an urban municipality than a rural or mixed-municipality? --Criticalthinker (talk) 10:12, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

• There are no differences – a urban council decides of a name of this local unit: "dzielnica" or "osiedle". Usually "dzielnica" is bigger than "osiedle", but it isn't the rule. Only in Warsaw "dzielnica" is defined by the law. Aotearoa (talk) 10:51, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

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Osiedle and Dzielnica (plural: Osiedla and Dzielnice) are two (often widely) different and separate levels of administrative divisions of cities in Poland, most visibly, in larger conglomerations. The English Wikipedia does not stress that difference enough. It is touched upon in the article Districts of Kraków. However, the Poland's capital, Warsaw, does not even have such Wikipedia article yet. Two corresponding articles in Polish Wikipedia are:

• Podział administracyjny Krakowa (Districts of Kraków in English)
• Podział administracyjny Warszawy (Category:Districts of Warsaw in English Wikipedia)

Kraków is divided into 18 dzielnice (districts), each with a name and number. Warsaw is also divided into 18 districts (i.e. dzielnice). In Kraków for example, the dzielnica Nowa Huta (with more than 200,000 inhabitants) is composed of fifty (50) osiedla, each named in the Polish Wiki, here:

• Osiedla i zwyczajowe jednostki urbanistyczne

Warsaw is much bigger than Kraków. For example, the dzielnica Ochota (the most populous district of Warsaw) is divided into an intermediate administrative unit called "obszar" (plural: obszary, an area in English), which is somewhat similar to osiedla. Poeticbent talk 17:02, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Dzielnice (i.e. Districts) of Kraków and Warsaw

Please hoover over the Roman numerals. For example, XVIII is Nowa Huta (per above):

Map of districts of the City of Kraków IV VI VII V I II IX III XVII X VIII XI XII XIII XIV XVIII XV XVI Vistula (Wisła) Interactive map. For more information, click on district number.

Districts (i.e. Dzielnice) of Warsaw Dzielnice (i.e. Districts) of Warsaw

Poeticbent talk 17:31, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

I thank you all for this explanation, but what I was wondering is if someone could update the pages for these two divisions, and perhaps even explain on this page the differences between the two and perhaps provide the most appropriate English translations? If you all have any questions for me on that, I'd be happy to try and help. --Criticalthinker (talk) 23:12, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Okay, just read the page for osiedla again and see that it does, in fact, say that they can be subdivisions of dzielnice. I'd still like to see both of these terms better defined on both of their respective pages, and then to also make it absolutely clear that osiedla are the lowest level of administrative division, and finally to find the best English translation for each term. It sound to me that osiedla would probably be best translated as administrative "neighborhoods" and dzielnice as "district."--Criticalthinker (talk) 08:53, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

• Concur. For example, New York is a city with 5 boroughs, 59 community districts and hundreds of neighborhoods. Osiedla (osiedle) can definitely be translated as neighborhoods (neighbourhoods) in this context. Each osiedle in Poland has a different zip code (kod pocztowy) which only confirms that. Poeticbent talk 14:47, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Aside from the agreement, here, on the translation, New York City is likely not the best example as New York City is a rather special case in the United States where the five boroughs are actually coterminous (meaning they share the same borders) as five counties, though they are still different entities (for example, while the Borough is Staten Island, it's the County or Richmond. In the case of New York City, since it is such a large city, the municipal government actually covers five different counties (powiats), which also happen to be the city boroughs. New York City is very centralized where the boroughs don't have any associated level of local government (they don't have councils, and the "president" has very little power).

I guess if one is to force the analogy New York City would be an urban gmina/city district which would be so large it's contain the area of five different contiguous powiats. Each powiat would also be be a dzielnica, but the dzielnice level of government would have no administrative function, while the powiat level of administration would have very limited function. You might be able to call the community districts osiedla, but those are more statistical divisions than administrative ones. The neighborhoods wouldn't have any comparison as they are neither statistical divisions nor do they have administrative boundaries. --Criticalthinker (talk) 17:48, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

All that is to say that American cities don't have administrative subdivisions below the gmina level that compare in any realistic way to those of larger Polish cities. Power is concentrated for local government almost entirely at the gmina level, and ONLY at the gmina level save for New York City which is the only city in the United States where the gmina incorporates the entirety of more than one county. --Criticalthinker (talk) 17:48, 21 December 2016 (UTC)