section_path: Government and politics/Local government
section_name: Local government
paragraph_text: Local government
  
  The Han empire, excluding kingdoms and marquessates, was divided, in descending order of size, into political units of provinces, commanderies, and counties. A county was divided into several districts (xiang 鄉), the latter composed of a group of hamlets (li 里), each containing about a hundred families.
  
  The heads of provinces, whose official title was changed from Inspector to Governor and vice versa several times during Han, were responsible for inspecting several commandery-level and kingdom-level administrations. On the basis of their reports, the officials in these local administrations would be promoted, demoted, dismissed, or prosecuted by the imperial court.
  
  A governor could take various actions without permission from the imperial court. The lower-ranked inspector had executive powers only during times of crisis, such as raising militias across the commanderies under his jurisdiction to suppress a rebellion.
  
  A commandery consisted of a group of counties, and was headed by an administrator. He was the top civil and military leader of the commandery and handled defence, lawsuits, seasonal instructions to farmers, and recommendations of nominees for office sent annually to the capital in a quota system first established by Emperor Wu. The head of a large county of about 10,000 households was called a Prefect, while the heads of smaller counties were called chiefs, and both could be referred to as magistrates. A Magistrate maintained law and order in his county, registered the populace for taxation, mobilized commoners for annual corvée duties, repaired schools, and supervised public works.