tehsil

Tehsil, also spelled tahsil, is an administrative division used in several South Asian countries. It functions as a subdivision of a district and serves as a key unit for revenue administration and local governance. The term derives from Persian tahsil, meaning collection, and it is widely used in Urdu, Hindi, and related languages. In many parts of India and Pakistan, the tehsil is the level at which land records are maintained and revenue collection, including taxation and record mutations, occurs. The tehsil seat, known as the tehsil headquarters, houses the office of the tehsildar or talukdar, the senior revenue official responsible for administration within the tehsil. The tehsil is typically composed of a town or towns and a number of villages, grouped into clusters called union councils or gram panchayats in rural areas.

Administratively, the tehsil sits between the district and the village-level units. It coordinates development programs, police activity, and civil administration in its jurisdiction, and it is often involved in land reform, census data collection, and disaster management. The exact powers and naming conventions vary by country and state: some regions call the unit taluk or taluka (for example in parts of India), while others retain the term tehsil; in Pakistan, tehsil is a standard district subdivision.

In practice, the size and population of a tehsil can vary substantially, reflecting historical boundaries, geographic features, and administrative reforms. The concept aims to enable more efficient governance by aligning revenue collection and local administration with local needs and geography.