What Is the Difference between a State and a Province?

In Indonesia, we have a unitary republic, but with an additional variation. The province is governed by a Governor who is elected directly by the people in that province: one man one vote, The governor cannot be fired by the President/Central Government. The governor answers to and can be impeach by the Provincials People's Representative Assembly, to which all the members, proportional to number of residents/population, are elected directly (one man one vote) by the people.

This assembly has the power to make provincial laws and regulations as long as they do not contradict with the national Constitution and national law, and they only apply within the territory of the province and must be followed by any one in the territory (resident and non resident).

All branches of the central government, such as provincial head of ministry of transportation, minister of education, etc., are under the administration of or subordinate to the governor and work for the governor except for the armed forces, police, and district attorney. They work for and answer to the Central Government. So its a combine of Federal-Unitary, actually.

Nowadays, Indonesia is one of the most democratic countries in terms of governing and to elect government. We choose directly, by one man, one vote, our president, representatives, senator, governor, mayor, regent, provincial people rep assembly, city and regency council. We do not use the electoral college or representative vote for president, because the basic philosophy is government by the people and for the people, not for states or province.

The President governs humans, not the land or the sea. The human is the one to be govern. So regardless of how big the territory is, it does not matter. The number of humans living there is the important thing.

In Afghanistan, as the administrative systems is provincial here, we have twofold governmental system, a central presidential and local governance department. The central government consists of the Parliament, judicial and executive that is ruled by the president selected by nation, the local governance department is in charge of deploying governors, municipals and district governors for provinces and they should report to the head local governance.

The bicameral legislative consists of the house of lords and house of representatives, and the members of the lower house are divided according to the population of each province representing their province in Parliament. Provinces have no internal autonomy. Laws are made by the legislative and cabinet branches headed by the president, who is also able to make some principle rules for the whole country.

In the provincial system, there are premiers, right? They are in charge and responsible for their province, and they are expected to see to the needs and wants of the residents. This is the system that we use in South Africa, where a national party is elected by the nation, and not necessarily the president.

There are many political parties here, with the ANC being the most dominant throughout the country, meaning, even in the provincial leadership elections, the ANC will win eight out of nine provinces. ANC has power on.

What happens is that, whatever happens in each province, it must have a common governance, and the president has the power to hire and fire any premier through a set of channels. Of course, regarding Ankara, when electing a leader, people often vote for the political party and not so much the candidate.

This is baloney. At least in the US, a state is independent, and a province is not. State governors in the USA do not report to the federal government at all. They are the elected leaders of their state. States can and do pass laws that conflict with federal laws. Sometimes these laws are challenged, and sometimes not. A US state is much more independent than a Chinese (or Canadian) province. The president of the US cannot fire a governor, nor does he pay their wages. The federal government is a completely separate system that is only in charge of things that happen between states.

@turkay1-- Governors in the US states also belong to a political party, they're either Democratic or Republican. The difference from a provincial system is that there isn't much party politics involved when it comes to representing constituents in the American system.

I also think that in many countries that have a provincial system rather than a state system, there are more significant ethnic, religious and cultural differences between the provinces. Just look at Afghanistan-- people in different provinces speak different languages, are from a different ethnic groups and have differing norms.

@ankara-- Like the article mentioned, it really depends on the country and the kind of governance system they have there. Not every provincial system works the same.

But as an example, I can tell you about the provincial system in Armenia, which I know about because I stayed there for a while. In Armenia, there is a governor for each province who is appointed and who answers to the Ministry of Territorial Administration, who then answers to the Prime Minister.

Since the governors are appointed and not elected, they represent the interests of their political party. Politicians in Armenia belong to different political parties.

So it's a complicated system and has some significant differences from the U.S.

In the United States, we elect state representatives in our states to represent us in the federal government. Do countries with provincial systems do the same?

I understand that there is a governor in each province, but do the governors represent their province and the interests of residents?