gubernia

A governorate was a major and principal administrative subdivision of the Russian Empire. After the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, governorates remained as subdivisions in the Byelorussian, Russian and Ukrainian Soviet republics, and in the Soviet Union from its formation in 1922 until 1929. The term is also translated as government or province. A governorate was headed by a governor, a word borrowed from Latin gubernator, in turn from Greek kyvernítis.