nahiye

Nahiye, also spelled nahiyah, is an administrative term used in several countries to denote a subdistrict within a district. The word derives from Arabic nahiyah (ناحية), meaning "area" or "section," and has been borrowed into Turkish and other languages. In the Ottoman Empire, a nahiye was an administrative subdivision below the level of the kaza (district) and above the villages or rural settlements, serving as an intermediate unit for local administration.

Today, nahiyes exist in some countries, most notably in Syria and Iraq, and in various Middle Eastern states under different spellings and transliterations. In these systems, a nahiyah generally functions as a subdivision of a larger district (for example, governorates or mantiqah/qaḍā’ structures), and typically encompasses a number of towns and villages along with a central settlement that serves as the administrative seat. Administrative arrangements such as leadership, councils, and the exact competences of a nahiyah vary by country and over time.

In Turkey, the term historically referred to a subdistrict within a province; while the exact status has evolved, nahiyes were phased out or reorganized as part of modernization of the administrative system, with the term less commonly used in contemporary government discourse.

See also: administrative divisions, Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Ottoman Empire, local government.