Federal capital territory

Federal capital territory is a designation for a territorial entity.

It is a applied to one entity and was applied to two further:

Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria

The Federal Capital Territory is a federal territory in central Nigeria. Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria is located in this territory. FCT was formed in 1976 from parts of the states of Nasarawa, Niger, and Kogi. It is in the central region of the country. Unlike the States of Nigeria, which are headed by elected Governors, it is administered by the Federal Capital Territory Administration, headed by a minister appointed by the President.

Geography

The territory is located just north of the confluence of the Niger River and Benue River. It is bordered by the states of Niger to the West and North, Kaduna to the northeast, Nasarawa to the east and south, and Kogi to the southwest.

Lying between latitude 8.25 and 9.20 north of the equator and longitude 6.45 and 7.39 east of Greenwich Meridian, Abuja is geographically located in the center of the country.

The Federal Capital Territory has a landmass of approximately 7,315 km², of which the actual city occupies 275.3 km². It is situated within the Savannah region with moderate climatic conditions.

Federal Capital Territory (Pakistan)

The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) around Karachi was the original capital territory of Pakistan. The FCT was created in 1948 from the city of Karachi and surrounding areas as the location for Pakistan's capital following independence. The FCT was bordered by the province of Sind to the northeast and the princely state of Las Bela to the northwest with the Arabian Sea to the south.

History

Karachi became the first capital of the new country of Pakistan in 1947. The FCT was created in 1948 to enable the federal government to operate from a nationally-held territory. At that time it had a population of 400,000 people which began to increase rapidly because of the political focus on the city and the fact that it was the major commercial seaport for western Pakistan. When the territory was absorbed into the province of West Pakistan the city had a population of about 1.9 million.

The main ethnic groups in the FCT were Sindhis and Baluchis. However these were soon outnumbered by Muhajir the word Muhajir in English is Immigrant not refugees(Refugee in urdu means panahguzeen like afghan refugees) who had left India for Pakistan. This change in the ethnic make-up of the city would result in considerable tensions and violence propagated by ethno-nationalists.

Federal capital

A federal capital is a political entity, often a municipality or capital city, that enjoys status as a seat of government in a federal state. A federal capital is typically a city that physically encompasses the offices and meeting places of its respective government, where its location and relationship to subnational states are fixed by law or federal constitution. Federal capitals may or may not be considered states in themselves, and either exercise significant political autonomy from the federation or are directly ruled by the national government located within their premises, as federal districts.

Examples of well-known federal capitals include Washington, D.C., which is not part of any U.S. state but borders Maryland and Virginia; Berlin, which is a state of Germany in its own right and forms an enclave within the much larger state of Brandenburg; and the Australian Capital Territory, a territory of Australia which includes the capital city of Australia, Canberra.

Examples of federal capitals

Territory

A territory is a term for types of administrative division, usually an area that is under the jurisdiction of a state. In most countries' terminology, such as the United States and Nigeria, it refers to an organized division of an area that is under control of a country but not formally developed into, or incorporated into, a political unit of that country of equal status to other political units such as states or provinces. In international politics, the term is used particularly in reference to a non-sovereign geographic area which has come under the authority of another government; which has not been granted the powers of self-government normally devolved to secondary territorial divisions; or both.

Types

Common types of territory include:

Australian Capital Territory

The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) (formerly, "The Territory for the Seat of Government" and, later, the "Federal Capital Territory") is a territory in the south east of Australia, enclaved within New South Wales. It is the smaller of the two self-governing internal territories in Australia. The only city and by far the most populous community is Canberra, the capital city of Australia.

The need for a national territory was flagged by colonial delegates during the Federation conventions of the late 19th century. Section 125 of the Australian Constitution provided that, following Federation in 1901, land would be ceded freely to the new Federal Government. The territory was transferred to the Commonwealth by the state of New South Wales in 1911, two years prior to the naming of Canberra as the national capital in 1913. The floral emblem of the ACT is the royal bluebell and the bird emblem is the gang-gang cockatoo.

Geography

The ACT is bounded by the Goulburn-Cooma railway line in the east, the watershed of Naas Creek in the south, the watershed of the Cotter River in the west, and the watershed of the Molonglo River in the north-east. The ACT also has a small strip of territory around the southern end of the Beecroft Peninsula, which is the northern headland of Jervis Bay.

Honiara

Honiara /ˌhoʊnɪˈɑːrə/ is the capital city of Solomon Islands, administered as a provincial town on the northwestern coast of Guadalcanal Island. As of 2009 it had a population of 64,609 people. The city is served by Honiara International Airport and the sea port of Point Cruz, and lies along the Kukum Highway.

The airport area to the east of Honiara was the site of a battle between the United States and the Japanese during the Guadalcanal Campaign in World War II, the Battle of Henderson Field of 1942, from which America emerged victorious. After Honiara became the new capital of the British Protectorate of Solomon Islands in 1952 with the addition of many administrative buildings, the town began to develop and grow in population. Since the late 1990s, Honiara has suffered a turbulent history of ethnic violence and political unrest and is scarred by rioting. A coup attempt in June 2000 resulted in violent rebellions and fighting between the ethnic Malaitans of the Malaita Eagle Force (MEF) and the Guadalcanal natives of the Isatabu Freedom Movement (IFM). Although a peace agreement was made in October 2000, violence ensued in the city streets in March 2002 when two diplomats from New Zealand and numerous others were murdered. Conditions became so bad in Honiara that in July 2003 the Australian military and police units moved into the country to restore order. In 2006, riots broke out following the election of Snyder Rini as prime minister, destroying a part of Chinatown and making more than 1,000 Chinese residents homeless. The riots devastated the town and tourism in the city and the islands was severely affected.