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A German district is an administrative subdivision known as ドイツ語:''Landkreis'' ("rural district"), except in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein where it is known simply as ドイツ語:''Kreis''.〔In Germany, the term ''Kreis'' is also used informally for all rural districts, or even for all types of districts (e.g. in statistical summaries).〕 Most major cities in Germany are not part of a rural district, but perform district-like functions on their own. In this context, those cities are referred to as Kreisfreie Stadt (literally "district-free town") or Stadtkreis ("urban district"). Rural districts are at an intermediate level of administration between the German states (ドイツ語:''Länder'') and the municipal governments (ドイツ語:''Gemeinden'').〔A rural district is not to be confused with the larger ドイツ語:Regierungsbezirk, an administrative subdivision, that exists in only a few German states and is situated above district-level.〕 They correspond to level 3 administrative units of the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS 3), and are roughly equivalent to counties in the United States. Previously, the similar title ドイツ語:''Reichskreis'' (Imperial Circle) was given to groups of states in the Holy Roman Empire. The related term ''Landeskommissariat'' was used for similar administrative divisions in some German territories until the 19th century. == Types of districts == The majority of German districts are "rural districts" (German: ドイツ語:''Landkreise'') of which there are 295. Cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants (and smaller towns in some states) do not usually belong to a district, but take over district responsibilities themselves, similar to the concept of independent cities. These are known as "urban districts" (German: ドイツ語:''Kreisfreie Städte'' or ''Stadtkreise'')—cities which constitute a district in their own right—and there are currently (2011) 107 of them,〔This number includes the "city-states" of Berlin and Hamburg, and two urban districts of the city-state Bremen.〕 bringing the total number of districts to 402. As of 2011, approximately 25 million people live in these 107 urban districts. In North Rhine-Westphalia, there are some cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants which are not urban districts, for example Recklinghausen, Siegen, Paderborn, Bergisch Gladbach, Neuss and Moers. Nevertheless, these cities take over many district responsibilities themselves, although they are still part of a larger rural district. Midsize towns can perform particular administrative functions of the district as well, especially to provide common services to the local citizens. The classification as "midsize" town is usually based on a town's registered population, but varies from state to state. A special type of rural districts are the three so-called ドイツ語:''Kommunalverbände besonderer Art'' (''Municipal unions of special kind''), a fusion of a district-free town with its adjacent rural district: Besides the Regionalverband Saarbrücken (''Saarbrücken regional association''), from 1974 until 2007 called "Stadtverband Saarbrücken" (''Saarbrücken town association''), there is the Hanover Region since 2001 and the Städteregion Aachen (''Aachen region of towns'') since 2009. Aachen, Hanover and Göttingen retain certain rights of an urban district (''Kreisfreie Stadt''); Saarbrücken has not explicitly determined a similar provision in its legislation. 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「Districts of Germany」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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