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A župa (or zhupa, županija) is a historical type of administrative division in Central Europe and the Balkans, that originated in medieval Slavic culture, often translated into "county" or "district".[1] It was mentioned for the first time in the 8th century. It was initially used by the South and West Slavs, denoting various territorial units of which the leader was the župan. In modern Croatian and Slovenian, the term župa also means an ecclesiastical parish.[2]


The word "župa" (Serbian: Жупа; adopted into Hungarian: ispán and rendered in Greek as ζουπανία (zoupania, "land ruled by a župan") is derived from Slavic. It's medieval Latin equivalent was comitatus. It is mostly translated into "county" or "district".[3] According to Kmietowicz, it seems that the territorial organization had been created in Polish territories before the Slav Migrations.[4] Some Slavic nations changed its name into "opole", "okolina" and "vierw", but it has survived in župan.[4] Some scholars consider the word's older meaning was "open area in the valley".[2] This interpretation is confirmed by the Bulgarian župa (tomb), Polish zupa and Ukrainian župa (salt mine), and Old Slavonic župište (tomb).[2] As such, the Proto-Slavic *župa wouldn't derive from *gheu-p- (with *gheu- meaning "bend, distort"),[2] yet from Indo-European *g(h)eup-/*gheub- meaning "cavity, pit",[5] which derives from Nostratic *gopa meaning "hollow, empty".[6] However, Albert Bruckner suggested the opposite evolution; župa as a back formation from title župan (for the etymology see corresponding article),[7] which is a borrowing from Iranian languages (*fsu-pāna, "shepherd").[8]

Usage of the division

The division had a widespread distribution, and did not always had a concrete institutional definition.[9] The term župa signified the territorial and administrative unit of a tribe, and later only an administrative unit without tribal feature.[10][2] The South Slavs that settled in Roman lands to a certain degree adopted Roman state organization, but retained their own tribal organization.[11] Slavic tribes were divided into fraternities, each including a certain number of families.[11] The territory inhabited by a tribe was a župa, and its leader was the župan.[11]

The zhupa (plural zhupi) was an administrative unit in the First Bulgarian Empire, a subdivision of a larger unit called comitatus. In these countries, the equivalent of "county" is "judet" (from Latin judicium).[citation needed] The Croats and the Slovaks used the terms županija and župa for the counties in the Kingdom of Croatia and Kingdom of Hungary. German language translation of the word for those counties was komitat (from Latin comitatus, "countship") during the Middle Ages, but later it was gespanschaft (picking up the span root that previously came from župan).[citation needed]


The Croatian word župa signifies both a secular unit (county) and a religious unit (parish), ruled over by a "župan" (count) and "župnik" (parish priest).[12]

Croatian medieval state was divided into eleven ζουπανίας (zoupanias; župas), and the ban ruled over additional three župas Krbava, Lika, and Gacka).[13]

Today the term županija is the name for the Croatian regional government, the counties of Croatia. Mayors of counties hold the title of župan (pl. župani), which is usually translated as "county prefect". In the 19th century, the counties of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia were called županija. The Croats preserved the term župa until the modern times as the name for local clerical units, parishes of the Catholic Church and of the Protestant churches. The parish priest is called župnik.


In c. 1074, the župa is mentioned in Hungary as -spán, also as határispánságok (march, frontier county). The derivative titles were ispán, nominated by the king for not defined time, and gradually replaced by főispán in the 18-19th century; megyésispán, also nominated by the king but could be expelled anytime; alispán was the leader of the jurisdiction in the county if the 'megyésispán' was not available; várispán was more linked to the "vár" (fortress) in Hungary in the times of Árpád.


The Serbs in the Early Middle Ages were organized into župe, a confederation of village communities (roughly the equivalent of a county),[14] headed by a local župan (a magistrate or governor).[15] Thus the title of Grand Župan in Raška in 11th-12th century meant "supreme župan" of župans who ruled over župas.[10]

Dušan's Code (1349) named the administrative hierarchy as following: "lands, cities, župas and krajištes", the župas and krajištes were one and the same, with the župas on the borders were called krajištes (frontier).[16] The župa consisted of villages, and their status, rights and obligations were regulated in the constitution. The ruling nobility possessed hereditary allodial estates, which were worked by dependent sebri, the equivalent of Greek paroikoi; peasants owing labour services, formally bound by decree.[17]

Though the territorial unit today is unused, there are a number of traditional župe in Kosovo, around Prizren: Sredačka Župa, Sirinićka Župa, Gora, Opolje and Prizrenski Podgor. The Serbian language maintains the word in toponyms, the best known being that of the Župa Aleksandrovačka.


Slovakia, as a constituent part of Hungary from the 10th Century as well as in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy until 1918, inherited the Hungarian county (Slovak: župa) system, preserved throughout the inter-war period.[18] In the 11th century, there were 11 župa in the territory of Slovakia. In Slovakia, it was used as the official name of administrative units of Slovakia within Czechoslovakia in 1918 - 1928 and then again in the Slovak Republic during WWII in 1940-1945.

The Slovaks have also preserved the term semi-officially as an alternative name for the "Autonomous Regions" of Slovakia, whose territory is identical with that of the administrative Regions of Slovakia.[citation needed]


During World War II, when Slovenia was partitioned between Italy, Hungary, and Germany on 17 April 1941, in the Italian portion, named province of Lubiana, the new administration was led by an Italian High Commissioner, but there also were Presidents of the Council of Zhupans of Lubiana: Marko Natlačen (1941), Leon Rupnik (1942-1943).[citation needed]

See also



  1. Gluhak 1990, p. 225, 227.
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Gluhak 1993, p. 713.
  3. Fine 1991, p. 304.
  4. 4.0 4.1 Frank A. Kmietowicz (1976). Ancient Slavs. Worzalla Pub. Co. p. 185, footnote.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
  5. Gluhak 1993, p. 713-714.
  6. Gluhak 1993, p. 714.
  7. Alemany 2009, p. 7.
  8. Gluhak 1990, p. 228.
  9. Biliarsky, Ivan (2011). Word and Power in Mediaeval Bulgaria. Brill. p. 368. ISBN 9789004191457.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
  10. 10.0 10.1 Gluhak 1990, p. 227.
  11. 11.0 11.1 11.2 Zagreb. Universitet. Institut za ekonomiku poljoprivrede i sociologiju sela. SOUR za sociologiju sela (1972). The Yugoslav village. Dept. of Rural Sociology. p. 39.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
  12. Arturo Carlo Quintavalle, Università di Parma. Centro di studi medioevali, Fondazione Cariparma (2007). Arturo Carlo Quintavalle, ed. Medioevo: la chiesa e il palazzo : atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Parma, 20-24 settembre 2005 (illustrated ed.). Electa. p. 140. <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
  13. Živković 2012, p. 144.
  14. Fine 1991, p. 304
  15. Evans 2007, p. xxi
  16. Radovanović 2002, p. 5
  17. p. 290
  18. Univerzita Karlova (2005). Acta Universitatis Carolinae: Geographica, Volume 38, Issue 1. Universita Karlova. p. 146.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>