Subdivisions of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria

The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, a crown land of Austria-Hungary, was subdivided into political districts (Bezirkshauptmannschaften) for administrative purposes, which were referred to in Polish as powiaty (administrative counties). When they were introduced in 1867 there were 74 of these administrative counties; in 1900 there were 78 counties. The administrative counties were responsible for storing vital records. These counties were introduced following the 1867 December Constitution. Prior to 1867, while a crown land the Austrian Empire and before that as part of the Habsburg monarchy, the kingdom had instead been divided into Kreise since the late 18th century, which from 1854 were subdivided into Bezirke (referred to as Amtsbezirke ('office districts'), to distinguish them from other types of Bezirk). The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria was the largest and most populous crown land of Cisleithania (i.e. the non-Hungarian parts of the Habsburg realms) between 1772 and 1918. More widely, the central European region of Galicia is today split between the modern states of Poland and Ukraine. Despite having passed through several intermediate states during the great wars of the 20th century, the regions have mainly preserved their territorial integrity and continue to demarcate the jurisdiction of local government authorities in their successor states. The Kreise (circles; Kreis; cyrkuły, cyrkuł; округи , округ ) of Galicia and Lodomeria go back in some form to the aftermath of the First Partition of Poland in 1772 which led to the Kingdom's creation, but did not take something resembling their final form until 1782. They were (generally) named after their capital/seat; usually this would take the form [genitival adjectival form of the name] Kreis (usually simply [Name]er Kreis e.g. Lemberger Kreis from Lemberg, the German name for Lviv), but Kreis [standard form of the name] (e.g. Kreis Lemberg) was also used, especially later, and the two forms were interchangeable.