Әкімшілік аумақтық бөлініс: Вилаят туралы

Administrative division approximating a state or province

A wilayah (وَلاية or wilāya, plural ; Urdu and ولایت, velâyat; vilayet) is an administrative division, usually translated as "state", "province" or occasionally as "governorate". The word comes from the Arabic root "w l y", "to govern": a wāli—"governor"—governs a wālāya (or wilāya), "that which is governed". Under the Caliphate, the term referred to any constituent near sovereign state.

In Arabic, wilayah is used to refer to the states of the United States, and the United States of America as a whole is called al Wilāyāt al Muttaḥidah al Amrīkīyah, literally meaning "the American United States".

In the ethnically diverse Xinjiang region of Northwest China, the seven undifferentiated prefectures proper (; that is, not prefecture level cities, autonomous prefectures, etc.) are translated into the Uygur language as Vilayiti (ۋىلايىتى). For the other, more numerous types of administrative divisions in Xinjiang, however, Uygur uses Russian loanwords like oblasti or rayoni, in common with other Xinjiang languages like Kazakh.

Traditionally the provinces of the Ottoman Empire were known as eyâlets, but beginning in 1864, they were gradually restructured as smaller vilâyets—the Turkish pronunciation of the Arabic word wilāyah. Most were subdivided into sanjaks. The current provinces of Turkey are called il in Turkish.

The territory under the governance of the Islamic State (ISIS) is referred to them as officially being divided into wilayah, often translated into English as "province". An example is Islamic State – Khorasan Province and Islamic State West Africa Province.

In Urdu, the term Vilayat is used to refer to any foreign country. As an adjective Vilayati is used to indicate an imported article or good. In Bengali and Assamese, the term is bilat and bilati (archaic bilaiti), referring exclusively to Britain and British made. The British slang term blighty derives from this word, via the fact that the foreign British were referred to using this word during the time of the British Raj.