Recently, it has become fashionable for some politicians to use the foreign term "region" instead of such understandable words as "district", "krai", "region". On the one hand, it is clear that the speaker means a certain part of the territory, and on the other hand, it is not entirely clear where its boundaries end. Let's take an area for example. Is it a region or not? And the area? Can it be called a region? It's time to finally deal with this issue.
What is a region?
This word came to us from the English language. If you open a dictionary and see what a region (region) is and how to translate it into Russian correctly, you can easily get confused. A large number of possible options is simply amazing: district, region, sphere, region, country, etc. From this we can conclude that the region is a dimensionless concept, that is, it does not depend on the area of \u200b\u200bthe territory covered.
Thus, this term can be used to refer to almost any part of the surface of our planet, provided that this territory has a set of specific properties. In other words, answering the question of what a region is, we can say that it is an integrity and at the same time a part of the whole. It should be noted that each language operates with its own set of concepts related to the territorial structure. Therefore, in different states, this term is used to refer to specific phenomena peculiar only to a given country. For example, in Canada, the administrative structure of which consists of provinces, the list of regions includes only four regions: Ontario, Quebec, Atlantic and Western regions. And what will explanatory dictionaries tell us about this? The most detailed information about what a region is is given in the popular edition of E. Alaev. According to the source, this concept denotes a territory that, in the aggregate of its constituent elements, has certain differences compared to other territories. At the same time, its integrity is an objective condition and a natural result of its development.
How does this term differ from related concepts
The closest in meaning to this word is the term "area". It denotes a certain part of space or, which is basically the same thing, a certain limited part of the object in question. At the same time, the word "area" is usually used more in the sense of "area", within which any phenomena spread. NowConsider the word "region". In domestic practice, this term is usually used to refer to some formal administrative unit. From the point of view of the formal legal approach, the region is the basic unit and more than the district. At the same time, the research approach leads to a different opinion. From the point of view of zoning, the region is perceived as a formal territorial unit and is a special case of the region. As for the region, this word is used in two cases: as an administrative unit and as a synonym for the word "area".
