Each district is administered under a district secretariat. The districts are further subdivided into 256 divisional secretariats, and these to approximately 14,008 Grama Niladhari divisions. The districts are known in Sinhala as ''disa'' and in Tamil as ''māwaddam''. Originally, a ''disa'' (usually rendered into English as Dissavony) was a duchy, notably Matale and Uva.