The term prefecture (from the Latin Praefectura) indicates the office, seat, territorial circonscription of a Prefect. In English the term prefecture is also used to refer to offices deemed equivalent in other languages' cultural traditions.
Literal prefectures
Antiquity
For subsequent types of praefectura, see Praefectus.
It has been used most prominently to denote a somewhat self-governing body or area since the tetrarchy, when emperor Diocletian divided the Roman Empire into 4 districts (each divided into dioceses, grouping under a Vicarius a number of Roman provinces, listed under that article), although he maintained two pretorian prefectures as an administrative level above the also surviving dioceses (a few of which got split).
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