Subnational Units from Wales to Baja California

Wales is a country within the United Kingdom, covering about 21,218 square kilometres with a population of about 3.1 million at the 2021 census, and its devolved parliament is the Senedd. It is a good first stop because it shows a unit that is also called a country.

Northern Ireland was created in 1921 under the partition of Ireland, and its devolved Assembly was established by the Northern Ireland Act 1998. Its 2021 census population of 1,903,175 is about three percent of the United Kingdom total, a reminder that devolved units can be small and young.

North Brabant is a Dutch province formed in 1815 from part of the former Duchy of Brabant, with its capital at 's-Hertogenbosch and a 2025 population of 2,676,753 on about 5,082 square kilometres. It shows a province whose identity still rests on an older duchy.

Moscow Oblast surrounds the city of Moscow and had a population of 8,524,665 across about 44,329 square kilometres, making it Russia's second most populous federal subject. Unusually, it has no administrative center of its own, since its authorities sit in Moscow, Krasnogorsk and other places.

The Sakha Republic, also called Yakutia, covers more than three million square kilometres of Siberian taiga and tundra and is the largest subnational governing body in the world by area, yet its population is only about one million. Set beside Moscow Oblast, it shows the extremes within one country.

Punjab is a state in northwestern India with a 2011 census population of 27,743,338, the sixteenth largest among Indian states, and it shares its capital, Chandigarh, with neighboring Haryana. It also shares its name with a province across the border in Pakistan, so one older region is split between two countries.

Bujumbura Province is one of five provinces Burundi has after an administrative reform reduced the country from eighteen provinces, and it was formed by merging the former Bubanza, Bujumbura Mairie, Bujumbura Rural and Cibitoke provinces along with parts of two others. It shows a map that was redrawn within the last few years.

Kaduna State in northwestern Nigeria was created in 1967 as North-Central State and reached its present borders in 1987 after Katsina State was separated from it. It covers 46,053 square kilometres, is Nigeria's fourth largest state by area, and is nicknamed the Centre of Learning.

Edo State was created in 1991 out of the former Bendel State, with its capital at Benin City, which is the center of Nigeria's rubber industry. Together with Kaduna it shows how Nigeria has repeatedly split larger units into smaller states.

Rio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state of Brazil, with 11,233,263 people on about 281,707 square kilometres and Porto Alegre as its capital. It borders both Uruguay and Argentina, so a Brazilian state forms part of the frontier with two other countries.

Amazonas is the largest Brazilian state by area at more than 1.5 million square kilometres, larger than Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay combined, and its capital, Manaus, sits deep within the Amazon rainforest. Compared with Rio Grande do Sul, it shows how widely the units of one federation vary in size.

Puebla is one of Mexico's thirty-two federal entities, divided into 217 municipalities, and it grew from a colonial province built around a city the Spanish founded in 1531 to secure the trade route between Mexico City and Veracruz. Its origin lies in a trade route rather than a natural boundary.

Baja California is the northwesternmost of Mexico's thirty-two federal entities, covering the northern half of the Baja California peninsula, and it became a state in 1952 after being a federal territory. It ends the path at the northern border of Mexico, which it shares with California and a short stretch of Arizona.