Tehsil
administrative division of some countries of South Asia
A tahsil or tehsil (Hindustani pronunciation: [t̪ɛɦˈsiːl]), also known as a taluk or taluka (from Arabic تعلق), is a local administrative division in India and Pakistan. It is a subdistrict within a district including the designated populated place that serves as its administrative centre, with possible additional towns, and usually a number of villages. The terms in India have replaced earlier terms, such as pargana (pergunnah) and thana.
In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, a newer unit called mandal (circle) has come to replace the tehsil system. A mandal is generally smaller than a tehsil, and is meant for facilitating local self-government in the panchayat system. In West Bengal, Bihar, and Jharkhand, community development blocks (CDBs) are the empowered grassroots administrative unit, replacing tehsils.
The Tehsil office is primarily responsible for land revenue administration, besides election and executive functions. It is the ultimate executive agency for land records and related administrative matters. The chief official is called the tehsildar or, less officially, the talukdar or taluka muktiarkar. In the Indian administrative context Tehsil or taluk is considered a sub-district.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Tehsil” is administrative division of some countries of South Asia. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Tehsil, administrative and division, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “administrative division of some countries of South Asia” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
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 Jul 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q817477. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. 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.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tehsil” 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.