In recent times, it has become fashionable for some politicians to use the foreign term “region” instead of such clear words as “district”, “region”, “region”. On the one hand, it is clear that the speaker implies a certain part of the territory, and on the other hand, it is not entirely clear where its borders end. Take, for example, an area. Is it a region or not? What about the area? Can it be called a region? It's time to finally deal with this issue.
What is a region?
This word came to us from the English language. If you open the dictionary and see what a region is and how to correctly translate it into Russian, you can easily get confused. A large number of possible options are simply amazing: district, region, sphere, region, country, etc. From this we can conclude that the region is a dimensionless concept, that is, independent of the area covered by the territory.
Thus, this term can be used to refer to almost any part of the surface of our planet, provided that this territory has a set of specific properties. In other words, answering the question of what a region is, we can say that
this is integrity and at the same time part of the whole. It should be noted that each language operates with its own set of concepts relating to the territorial structure. Therefore, in different states, this term is used to refer to specific phenomena specific to a given country. For example, in Canada, the administrative structure of which consists of provinces, the list of regions includes only four areas: Ontario, Quebec, the Atlantic and Western regions. And what do smart dictionaries say about this? The most detailed description of what a region is is said in the popular edition of E. Alaev. According to the source, this concept denotes a territory that in the aggregate of its constituent elements has certain differences in comparison with other territories. Moreover, its integrity is an objective condition and a logical result of its development.
How does this term differ from related concepts
The term “habitat” is considered to be closest in meaning to this word. It denotes a certain part of space or, which is basically the same, a certain limited part of the object in question. At the same time, the word "area" is usually used more in the meaning of "area", within which any phenomena spread. Now consider the word "district". In domestic practice, this term is usually used to refer to any formal administrative unit. From the point of view of the formal legal approach, a region is a basic unit and larger than a district. At the same time, the research approach leads to a different opinion. From the point of view of regionalization, the region is perceived as a formal territorial unit and is a special case of the region. As for the region, this word is used in two cases: as an administrative unit and as a synonym for the word "range".