Pyongsan County

P‘yŏngsan County is a county in North Hwanghae province, North Korea.

Administrative Divisions

P'yŏngsan county is divided into 1 ŭp (town), 2 rodongjagu (workers' districts) and 20 ri (villages):

Industry

Nuclear Waste Dump

The North Korean Cental Government and Taipower are in negotiations about shipping nuclear waste to P‘yŏngsan. The deal was "worth US$75.66 million envisaged shipping 60,000 barrels of nuclear waste, and a further 14,000 barrels in the second stage, with a total value of $150 million and that the North Koreans were after the deal as a source of foreign exchange" but has run into difficulty when Taipower could not get an "export permit for the waste from the Taiwanese Atomic Energy Council". According to Huang Tien-huang, a Taipower official, North Korea blocked Taipower from viewing the processing site at P‘yŏngsan. Due to several issues, the final contract was not signed. However, North Korea (through its attorney, Tsai Hui-ling) is suing Taipower for breach of contract.

County

A county, abbreviated Cnty. (US) or Co. (UK and Ireland), is a geographical region of a country used for administrative or other purposes, in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French conté or cunté denoting a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count (earl) or a viscount. The modern French is comté, and its equivalents in other languages are contea, contado, comtat, condado, Grafschaft, graafschap, Gau, etc. (cf. conte, comte, conde, Graf).

When the Normans conquered England, they brought the term with them. The Saxons had already established the districts that became the historic counties of England, calling them shires (many county names derive from the name of the county town with the word "shire" added on: for example, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire). The Vikings introduced the term earl (from Old Norse, jarl) to the British Isles. Thus, "earl" and "earldom" were taken as equivalent to the continental use of "count" and "county". So the later-imported term became a synonym for the native English word scir ([ʃiːr]) or, in Modern English, shire. Since a shire was an administrative division of the kingdom, the term "county" evolved to designate an administrative division of national government in most modern uses.

Powiat

A powiat (pronounced [ˈpɔvʲat]; Polish plural: powiaty) is the second-level unit of local government and administration in Poland, equivalent to a county, district or prefecture (LAU-1, formerly NUTS-4) in other countries. The term "powiat" is most often translated into English as "county".

A powiat is part of a larger unit, the voivodeship (Polish województwo) or province.

A powiat is usually subdivided into gminas (in English, often referred to as "communes" or "municipalities"). Major towns and cities, however, function as separate counties in their own right, without subdivision into gminas. They are termed "city counties" (powiaty grodzkie or, more formally, miasta na prawach powiatu) and have roughly the same status as former county boroughs in the UK. The other type of powiats are termed "land counties" (powiaty ziemskie).

As of 2008, there were 379 powiat-level entities: 314 land counties, and 65 city counties. For a complete alphabetical listing, see "List of Polish counties". For tables of counties by voivodeship, see the articles on the individual voivodeships (e.g., Greater Poland Voivodeship).

Counties of Sweden

The counties of Sweden (Swedish: län) are the top-level geographic subdivisions of Sweden. Sweden is today divided into 21 counties; however, the numbers of counties has varied over time, due to territorial gains/losses and to divisions and/or mergers of existing counties. This level of administrative unit was first established in the 1634 Instrument of Government on Lord Chancellor Count Axel Oxenstierna's initiative, and superseded the historical provinces of Sweden (Swedish: landskap) in order to introduce a more efficient administration of the realm. At that time, they were what the translation of län into English literally means: fiefdoms. The county borders often follow the provincial borders, but the Crown often chose to make slight relocations to suit its purposes.

In every county except Gotland there is a county administrative board (länsstyrelse) headed by a governor (landshövding), appointed by the government, as well as a separate county council (landsting).