A province is a territorial unit, almost always an administrative division, within a country or state.

Roman provinces

main: Roman province The word is attested in English since c.1330, deriving from Old French province (13th c.), which comes from the Roman word provincia, which referred to the sphere of activity which a magistrate was assigned to exercise his authority; hence, in particular, a foreign territory.

A possible origin in Latin is from pro- ("on behalf of") and vincere ("to triumph/take control over"). Thus a province is a territory or function that a Roman magistrate took control of on behalf of his government. However this does not tally with the even earlier Latin usage as a generic term for a jurisdiction under Roman law.

The Roman Empire was divided into provinces (provinciae).

Provinces in modern countries

In many countries, a province is a relatively small non-constituent level of sub-national government (similar to a county in many English-speaking countries). In others it is an autonomous level of government and constituent part of a federation or confederation, often with a large area (similar to a US state). In France and China, province is a sub-national region within a unitary state. This means the province can be abolished or created by the central government.

For instance, a province is a local unit of government in Philippines, Belgium, Spain, France and Italy, and a large constituent autonomous area in Canada, Congo and Argentina.

In Italy and Chile a province is an administrative sub-division of a region, which is the first order administrative sub-division of the state. Italian provinces consist of several administrative sub-divisions called comune (communes). In Chile they are referred to as comunas.

In the United Kingdom, a province is any county (see Counties of the United Kingdom) outside Greater London,Fact: date=November 2008 and hence "the provinces" are everywhere except Greater London.

Five Canadian provinces of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island have counties to act as adminstrative sub-divisions of each province.

Ireland is divided up into four historic provinces (see Provinces of Ireland), each of which is sub-divided into counties (see Counties of Ireland). These are Connacht (in the west), Leinster (in the east), Munster (in the south) and, perhaps most famously (due to The Troubles), Ulster (in the north). Nowadays, these provinces have little or no administrative function.

Various overseas parts of the British Empire had the colonial title of Province (in a more Roman sense), such as the Province of Canada and the Province of South Australia (the latter to distinguish it from the penal 'colonies' elsewhere in Australia). Equally, for instance, Mozambique was a "province" as a Portuguese colony.