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English translation: district/local administrative capital
08:25 May 11, 2019
Spanish to English translations [PRO] Social Sciences - Tourism & Travel / Smart cities
Spanish term or phrase:cabeceras comarcales
SPAIN. This is from an article on "Smart cities". I know what it means, but I'm not sure how to best express it. (Posting as a non-pro query to save anyone else the trouble of downgrading it).
"Desde la Estrategia Territorial Europea (1999), se ha venido advirtiendo la importancia de desarrollar un sistema urbano europeo más equilibrado y ordenado, capaz de generar un desarrollo policéntrico en aras de asegurar a la mayoría de la población de los recursos, los servicios, el empleo y la innovación a través de las redes de ciudades, con la finalidad de procurar también una mayor cohesión territorial (Romero y Farinós, 2004). Así pues, las ciudades intermedias que cumplen funciones de ***cabeceras comarcales*** adquieren un esencial protagonismo en estas regiones y constituyen importantes centros de desarrollo de actividades industriales y de servicios, investigación y tecnología, turismo y ocio (Comisión Europea, 1999).
Explanation: 1. Avoids counties, shires, hundreds, boroughs, parishes, townlands and any other of the many variations out there 2. Uses "district", a neutral but universally comprehensible term 3. Seems to fit the excellent definitions in Stuart and Aida's references 4. Reflects the fact that there are local authority offices etc. there
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WOOPS, I forgot to acknowledge Charles - devoted as ever
I actually ended up using both region/district to refer to the area, and "hub" as well at one point. I think the finished article reads quite well. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this query - I really appreciate it. 4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer
Looks a lot to me like the "cabecera municipal" in Mexico, i.e., the place where the municipal government offices are located. "Capital" seems a bit grand for this (I'd prefer "municipal seat of govt"), but I suppose it's okay, given that municipalities have a "presidente" and often even a "primera dama"!
Actually "region" is used in more than one way even in EU regional policy: there are larger groupings in Spain (six in all), and in the UK (17), and for other geopolitical purposes they can be supranational: Benelux or Scandinavia, for example. In the US things like New England or the Midwest could be described as regions. But to call a relatively tiny area like Safor (roughly 30 by 15 km) a region seems anomalous to me.
You mean Spanish "Regiones", don't you? (I'm not sure they ever officially called that in Spanish, but unofficially they certainly were and are.) EU "Regions" are alive and well, and in the case of Spain they are the autonomous communities, so for EU purposes the CC.AA. are indeed Regions. https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/es/atlas/spain/
I only consider Eur-Lex to be an authority within the EU framework. And, as you point out, sometimes their suggestions go off half-cocked (for example, leaving "comarca" untranslated).
The former EU "Regions" (capital R) are now CC.AA. Which means "region" (lower case r) as a territorial division can now be applied where previously it might have caused confusion. Back in the day, "district" mght have been appropriate, but I'm not keen on it as I perceive it to be a smaller area. In a worst case scenario, I can define the term in a footnote if need be.
To me that's spot on: Valencia (the Valencian community) is a region and Safor is a district, just as East Anglia is a region and Fenland (Cambridgeshire) is a district. There are mostly 5-10 "districts" per county in England; to my ear it's a good fit.
And here's another in a linguistic article (translated, but well):
This is becoming fascinating! Have you checked in https://eur-lex.europa.eu/homepage.html? There are several options, but they tend to leave comarca untranslated. And they use sometimes commune as "municipio" , which might be an optional word for your text, although not so much for the current expression you are posting here.
As the official designation is now Andalusian autonomous community, I reckon that frees up the term "region" for use as a broad synonym of "area/district/zone...". I understand La Safor to be from Cullera southwards, but I don't know how far it reaches. The Wikipedia entry cops out and leaves it as "comarca" (Safor is a comarca within the province of Valencia, Spain), but I'm not considering that option. This is turning out to be a can of worms. I suppose I should be thankful they haven't used "pedanía" in the text… :-) FWIW, a search for "La Safor region" gets quite a few hits from seemingly reliable published sources...
Up to you. As I say, I definitely wouldn't do it. Seville is the regional capital of Andalusia, because Andalusia is a region, but Gandia is not the regional capital of Safor, because Safor is not a region (IMHO).
I ran some of the sentences with "comarca" in them through Google Translate, which renders it as "region"… And "comarques" is just a get-out IMHO. There's no way I'm using that :-)
I'm with Jessica on "region"; I don't think it's suitable for "comarca". Although officially autonomous communities are not called "regions" (and there is resistance in officialdom to calling them "regiones", for obscure reasons I can't remember), that is what they are in effect. Helena uses "autonomous region" for "comunidad autónoma", and I think that's quite reasonable, though I personally use "autonomous community", but when I have to refer to the government of an autonomous community I call it the "regional government". "Region" generally suggests a large subdivision of a country (this is true of the UK, among other countries).
There are 34 of them, in three provinces: 11 per province. Gandia is in La Safor (a very old name, by the way): population (of the comarca) just over 170,000, area 430 square kilometres. Not very big. And it includes Valldigna, which used to be a separate comarca.
The thing is that the autonomous communities are what used to be called regions in Spain. The way I see it, that frees up the vocabulary item for use as a general term, which is why I'm probably going to go with "regional..." (I haven't decided on the final version yet, I should have a rough draft of the whole article ready by tomorrow evening).
In other words, the average population of a Spanish municipio is only about 7000! Obviously some have a lot more people than that, but logically many have fewer.
They've messed around with these terms in England. Since 1974 "borough status" has been granted to certain "districts" which may consist of a single town or of several towns. This is a bit of an anomaly historically.
Can a district have 14 municipalities? I don't see why not, in principle, in the sense that a district could have that many recognisable urban units. The UK no longer has municipalities at all. Spanish municipalities are much smaller in relative terms than UK local authority areas. There are nearly 6000 municipios in Spain but only 408 principal councils in the UK (county councils, district councils and "unitary areas"). Analogies really break down when you get to details like this; local government is differently organised. And in Spain a "comarca" is not a political unit: it has no elected administrative body. I think what we want is a word that suggests something between a town and a "province" (which I see as analogous to a UK county).
I suggested 'borough' because whilst researching this question, I discovered that the local government district where I used to live in the UK has borough status.
The 'comarca' where I live in Spain is made up of 14 municipalities (I've just checked). Can a district have 14 municipalities?
I would only use 'district' here if the term appeared a couple of times; otherwise, I don't think it's a bad idea to teach readers something new!
"Borough" sounds too small to me. To British (or American?) ears it suggests something more like a municipality, and it's mainly associated nowadays with subdivisions of big cities like London and New York. Scottish burghs are municipalities too. Admittedly it's used differently in Ireland.
Size-wise, there are 50 provinces in Spain and some 370 comarcas: 5-10 per province. In English terms, "district" sounds right to me for comarca (as in "district council"): a subdivision of a county, which is roughly comparable to a province in relative scale. Admittedly "district" is also used for subdivisions of big cities. Why don't you think it works here, Helena?
Definition of comarca : a territorial subdivision (as a district or circuit) of a state —used chiefly of administrative units of certain Latin-American nations
I always use: comunidad autónoma = (autonomous) region; municipio = municipality; cuidad, población = town or city; barrio = neighbourhood or district; comarca = I sometimes translate it as district, but in this case I don't think that works.
I think 'borough' is the nearest translation but I would use 'comarca' with an explanation. Capitals of comarcas don't change; for example, Barcelona is the capital of the Barcelonès comarca and I can't see it changing in the near future!
I also had to look at the acronym:) and this is definitely a PRO question, no doubt about it. According to my research in Spanish (see reference below), I think Charles has a good suggestion with 'district administrative centre'. I wouldn't describe these as a fixed capital etc. because these towns are elected and it seems that they are elected from time to time but I am not sure. They are a kind of a 'functional centre' for the comarca (region, district or as Helena says maybe just comarca?). However, can we call them functional centres?
In France "regions" are aggregations of smaller states or departments, and quite large, comparable to Spain's autonomous communities. The capitals of such regions are the major cities in the country. So "intermediate cities" by definition can't be regional capitals IMHO. So then, why not "smaller administrative centres" if we don't want to bring up thoughts of counts and hobbits?
Mainly Europe, but should be accessible to English speakers worldwide.The problem with county is that in Spain the "condado" designation is usually only used in areas that were actually governed by a count at one time or another. And "shire" just makes me think of hobbits! Thanks for all the comments and suggestions so far. François' suggestion "regional capitals" is the closest to the solution I've been mulling over myself so far.
As I read it, these "cabeceras comerciales" are smaller than the regional capitals; the text calls them "intermediate". So they are the principal towns or cities in the next division down from what a "region"might be in this context. "Region" a concept that varies from country to country, but is not officially used in the US or Canada. I have always compared "comarcas" in my mind to counties, so if this were my job, I would choose "county seat", the official term in both North American countries. (The old term in Canada is "shire town", but that is too antiquated.) Here is where the asker needs to clarify which side of the pond he is translating for, because the terms are clearly different.
I've just looked up the main towns of two 'comarcas' near where I live and they're both described as capitals of comarcas. I think I would use comarca and add a T.N. the first time the word appears.
Thanks, folks! I voted PRO because I think it's PRO, and as a gesture to Neil in the spirit of DLTBGYD. I wasn't planning to answer, because I'm a bit busy, and I really think it's quite tricky (both words). I've had a bit of a think, but I can see objections to all the ideas that come to me. At the moment I'm thnking of "district administrative centre", and if anyone wants to run with that they're welcome.
Tx CD for the vote of confidence! Actually, the query is as much about "cabecera" as it is about "comarcal"; the author uses it a lot, e.g. "cabeceras de áreas funcionales configuradas por más ciudades y pueblos"...
Automatic update in 00:
Answers
1 hr confidence:
regional head
Explanation: Espero te ayude
Marina56 Local time: 20:25 Specializes in field Native speaker of: Spanish, Italian PRO pts in category: 4
Explanation: If you are translating into UK English. Also county heads or administrative centres are possible, and if you are translating into US English, maybe clearer.
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_town
Isabel Peralta Spain Local time: 20:25 Works in field Native speaker of: Spanish