Function
The Austrian Bezirk is roughly equivalent to the Landkreis in Germany and County in the United States. The administrative office of a district, the Bezirkshauptmannschaft is headed by the Bezirkshauptmann. The districts are in charge of the administration of all matters of federal and state administrative law and subject to orders from the higher instances, usually the Landeshauptmann (governor) in matters of federal law and the Landesregierung (state government) in state law. Thus, the district is the basic unit of general administration in Austria.
Officials on the district level are not elected but appointed by the state government.
There are also independent cities in Austria. They are called Statutarstadt in Austrian administrative law. These cities are not part of any district and the city administration covers all matters usually a district administration would do.
Usually, an independent city is home to a district administration which is responsible for the surrounding area of the respective city. For example, Innsbruck is an independent city surrounded by the district "Innsbruck-Land" of which the district administration is situated in the city of Innsbruck.
Vienna, which is both a state and a Statutarstadt, is further subdivided into districts, which are divisions used for local administration by the city government.
For more information on Austrian administration, see States of Austria.
Read more about this topic: Districts Of Austria
Famous quotes containing the word function:
“... the function of art is to do more than tell it like it is—it’s to imagine what is possible.”
—bell hooks (b. c. 1955)
“Every boy was supposed to come into the world equipped with a father whose prime function was to be our father and show us how to be men. He can escape us, but we can never escape him. Present or absent, dead or alive, real or imagined, our father is the main man in our masculinity.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“Morality and its victim, the mother—what a terrible picture! Is there indeed anything more terrible, more criminal, than our glorified sacred function of motherhood?”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)