Circuit (political division)

A circuit is an appellate judicial district among the courts of many nations. The name comes from an era in which justices would ride within a area hearing cases.

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Circuit (道 ; Chinese: dào; Japanese: dō) was a historical political division of China, and is still a Japanese one. In Korea, the same word 道 (도; do) is translated as "Province."

There is another Chinese political division, the lù (路), which is translated as "circuits" as well, because the dao and lu never coexisted. Both lu and dao literally means "road/path".

China

Circuits originated in China in 627, when Emperor Taizong subdivided China into ten circuits. These were originally meant to be purely geographic and not administrative. Emperor Xuanzong further added 5. Slowly the circuits strengthened their own power, until they became powerful regional forces that tore the country apart during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. During the Jinn and Song, circuits were renamed lu. Dao were revived during the Yuan Dynasty.

At first, circuits were the highest of the three-tier administrative system of China; the next two were prefectures or zhou (州) and counties (縣, also translated as "districts"). They are simultaneously inspection areas (監察區 jian1 cha2 qu1). Circuits were demoted to the second-level after the Yuan Dynasty established provinces at the very top, and remained there for the next several centuries.

Circuits still existed as high-level, though not top-level, divisions of the Republic of China, such as Qionyai Circuit (now Hainan Province). In 1928, all circuits were replaced with committees or just completely abandoned.

Japan

During the pre-modern era, Japan was divided into seven circuits encompassing the islands of Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu. The seven defunct circuits spread all over the three islands:

• Tōkaidō (東海道) "East Sea Circuit": 15 provinces (kuni)
• Nankaidō (南海道) "South Sea Circuit": 6 provinces
• Saikaidō (西海道) "West Sea Circuit": 8 provinces
• Hokurikudō (北陸道) "North Mainland Circuit": 7 provinces
• San'indo (山陰道) "Mountain-north Circuit": 8 provinces
• San'yōdō (山陽道) "Mountain-south Circuit": 8 provinces
• Tōsandō (東山道) "East Mountain Circuit": 13 provinces

(For the mountain south-north reference with in and yo, see Yin Yang.)

In the mid-1800's, the northern island of Ezo was settled, and renamed Hokkaido ("North Sea Circuit"). However, Hokkaido was never a "circuit" in the classical sense. It is essentially a prefecture with a different name from the other prefectures.

See also: Prefectures of Japan, Old provinces of Japan

Korea

Since the late 10th century, the Do ("Province") has been the primary administrative division in Korea. See Provinces of Korea for details.