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Division of Poland into powiats (counties)




As of 2008, there were 379 powiat-level entities: 314 land counties, and 65 city counties. For a complete alphabetical listing, see "List of Polish counties". For tables of counties by voivodeship, see the articles on the individual voivodeships (e.g., Greater Poland Voivodeship).







Legislative power within a powiat is vested in an elected council (rada powiatu), while local executive power is vested in the starosta, who is elected by that council. The administrative offices headed by the starosta are called the starostwo. However in city counties these institutions do not exist separately – their powers and functions are exercised by the city council (rada miasta), the directly-elected mayor (burmistrz or prezydent), and the city offices (urząd miasta).



  • healthcare (at county level)
  • public transport
  • maintenance of certain designated roads
  • land surveying
  • issuing of work permits to foreigners
  • vehicle registration (see Polish car number plates)

Names and English equivalents[edit]

The Polish name of a land county consists of the word powiat followed by a masculine-gender adjective (since powiat is a masculine noun). In most cases this is the adjective formed from the name of the town or city where the county has its seat. Thus the county with its seat at the town of Kutno is named powiat kutnowski (Kutno County). Note that in modern Polish both parts of the name are written in lower case; however, names of powiats in Grand Duchy of Poznań were written in upper case. If the name of the seat comprises a noun followed by an adjective, as in Maków Mazowiecki ("Mazovian Maków"), the adjective will generally be formed from the noun only (powiat makowski). There are also a few counties whose names are derived from the names of two towns (such as powiat czarnkowsko-trzcianecki, Czarnków-Trzcianka County), from the name of a city and a geographical adjective (powiat łódzki wschodni, Łódź East County), or a mountain range (powiat tatrzański, Tatra County).

There is more than one way to render such names in English. A common method is to translate the names as "(something County)", as in the examples above. (This is the system used as standard in Wikipedia.) Thus in most cases the English name for a powiat consists of the name of the city or town which is its seat, followed by the word County.



  1. ^ Sudan: A Country Study "Role in Government" United States Library of Congress. Accessed on September 10, 2007.
  • Bankauskaite, V. et al. (2007) Patterns of decentralization across European health systems. in R.B. Saltman, V. Bankauskaite and K. Vrangbæk (eds) Decentralization in health care. London: Open University Press / McGraw-Hill.
This article incorporates information from the revision as of 25 January 2008 of the equivalent article on the Polish Wikipedia.

External links[edit]