CANTON

Canton

A canton is a type of administrative division of a country. In general, cantons are relatively small in terms of area and population when compared to other administrative divisions such as counties, departments or provinces. Internationally the best-known cantons, and the most politically important, are those of Switzerland. As the constituents of the Swiss Confederation, theoretically the Swiss cantons are semi-sovereign states.

The above text is a snippet from Wikipedia: Canton (country subdivision)
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canton

Noun

  1. A division of a political unit.
    1. One of the states comprising the Swiss Confederation.
    2. A subdivision of an arrondissement of France.
    3. A division of Luxembourg, Bosnia and Herzegovina, etc.
  2. A small community or clan.
  3. A subdivision of a flag, the rectangular inset on the upper hoist (i.e., flagpole) side (e.g., the stars of the US national flag are in a canton).
  4. A division of a shield occupying one third of the chief, usually on the dexter side, formed by a perpendicular line from the top meeting a horizontal line from the side.

Noun (etymology 2)

  1. A song or canto.

Verb

  1. To delineate as a separate district.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: canton
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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