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Chief superintendent

senior police force rank

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 25, 2026
Entity authorityQ860252
Source-derived summary

Chief superintendent is a senior rank in police forces, especially in those organised on the British model.

Rank insignia of chief superintendent

Chief superintendent by country

Australia

In Australia, a chief superintendent is senior to the rank of superintendent in all the Australian police forces excepting the Western Australia Police. It is junior to the rank of commander (Victoria Police, South Australia Police) and the rank of assistant commissioner (New South Wales Police, Queensland Police). Officers wear the insignia of a crown over two Bath stars (or in the case of the New South Wales Police, a crown over two stars) the same as a colonel in the army.

Canada

In the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Ontario Provincial Police, a chief superintendent wears two Bath stars (or pips) below a crown, equivalent to a colonel. In the RCMP, the rank falls between superintendent and assistant commissioner. The OPP rank is between superintendent and deputy commissioner or provincial commander.

Hong Kong

In the Hong Kong Police Force, a chief superintendent of police (CSP) ranks between a senior superintendent (SSP) and an assistant commissioner of police (ACP). A CSP is usually a district commander (DC) or a branch or bureau commander (e.g. Narcotics Bureau).

Editorial summary

“Chief superintendent” enters the record as senior police force rank. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Chief, superintendent and senior can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current 204-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Chief, superintendent and senior.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Chief superintendent” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Chief, superintendent and senior provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q860252. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Chief superintendent”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Chief superintendent primary sources, Chief superintendent archive and Chief research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Chief superintendent”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Chief superintendent” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.