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''Gau'' (plural ''Gaue'', Dutch: ''gouw'', Frisian: ''gea'' or ''goa'') is a Germanic term for a region within a country, often a former or actual province. It was used in medieval times, when it can be seen as roughly corresponding to an English shire. The administrative use of the term was revived as a subdivision during the period of Nazi Germany in 1933–1945. It still appears today in regional names, such as the Ambergau. ==Medieval period== The Germanic word is reflected in Gothic ''gavi'' (neuter; genitive ''gaujis'') and early Old High German ''gewi, gowi'' (neuter) and in some compound names still ''-gawi'' as in Gothic (e.g. ''Durgawi'' "Thurgau", ''Alpagawi'' "Allgäu"), later ''gâi, gôi'', and after loss of the stem suffix ''gaw, gao'', and with motion to the feminine as ''gawa''〔numerous variant spellings; ''gauwa, gowa, gouwa, geiwa, gauia, gawia, gowia, gaugia''〕 besides ''gowo'' (from ''gowio''. Old Saxon shows further truncation to ''gâ, gô''.〔Grimm, ''Deutsches Wörterbuch''〕 The German word is a gloss of the Latin ''pagus''; hence the ''Gau'' is analogous with the ''pays'' of feudal France. Old English, by contrast, has only traces of the word, which was ousted by ''scire'' from an early time, in names such as ''Noxga gā, Ohtga gā'' and perhaps in ''gōman, ġēman'' (yeoman), which would then correspond to the Old High German ''gaumann'' (Grimm) although the OED prefers connection of ''yeoman'' to ''young''. In the Frankish Empire, a ''Gau'' was a subdivision of the realm, further divided into Hundreds. The Frankish ''gowe'' thus appears to correspond roughly to the ''civitas'' in other Barbarian kingdoms (Visigoths, Burgundians, Lombards). After the end of the Migration period, the Hundred (''centena'' or ''hunaria'', Old High German ''huntari'') became a term for an administrative unit or jurisdiction, independent of the figure hundred. The Frankish usage contrasts with Tacitus' ''Germania'', where a ''pagus'' was a subdivision of a tribal territory or ''civitas'', corresponding to the Hundred, i.e. areas liable to provide a hundred men under arms, or containing roughly a hundred homesteads each, further divided into ''vici'' (villages or farmsteads).〔''Meyers Konversationslexikon'', Fourth Edition, 1885–1892. 〕 In the German-speaking lands east of the Rhine, the ''Gau'' formed the unit of administration of the Carolingian empire during the 9th and 10th centuries. Similar to many shires in England, during the Middle Ages, many such ''gaus'' came to be known as counties or ''Grafschaften'', the territory of a ''Graf'' or count within the Holy Roman Empire. Such a count or ''graf'' would originally have been an appointed governor, but the position generally became an hereditary vassal princedom, or fief in most of continental Europe. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Gau (country subdivision)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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