Prefectures of Guinea

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Updates: 

ISO 3166-2 has come out in a second edition, dated 2007-12-15. Previously, ISO had designated Conakry as a city, and coded it as if it were on the administrative region level. Now its status is listed as zone spéciale (special zone), and it's on the same level as the prefectures. I've added the code for Conakry to the table below.

When "Administrative Subdivisions of Countries" was written, the current version of the ISO 3166-2 standard erroneously assigned a code of KD to both Kindia and Koundara prefectures. In order to get unique codes, I arbitrarily changed the code for Kindia to KI. Later, ISO 3166-2 was updated to fix the anomaly, and the fix they adopted was to change the code for Koundara to KN. In 2004, I added text from the book to the website. In so doing, I accidentally used the old ISO codes with my arbitrary correction as HASC codes. I am now updating the HASC codes to be consistent with the ISO codes.

I found 1998 population estimates in a report titled "Le redéploiement des enseignants en Guinée ", by Alamah Conde and Mamadou Aliou Sow (see Annexe 1).

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter Number I-2 was published on 2002-05-21. It contains two changes for Guinea. The status of Conakry is changed from gouvernorat (governorate) to ville (city). According to FIPS, Conakry is a capitale d'état - zone spéciale (national capital - special zone). The other change is to the code for Koundara. The original ISO 3166-2 standard had incorrectly assigned the same code, KD, to both Kindia and Koundara. The update changes the code for Koundara to KN.

Change Notice 7 to FIPS PUB 10-4 is dated 2002-01-10. It reflects changes that are already shown in the book "Administrative Subdivisions of Countries", and in ISO standard 3166-2.

Country overview: 

Guinea was known as French Guinea in 1900. In 1943, it and seven other French colonies were combined to form French West Africa (Afrique Occidentale Française, capital Dakar). Guinea became independent on 1958-10-02.

Other names of country: 

1. Danish: Guinea
2. Dutch: Guinee, Republiek Guinee (formal)
3. English: Republic of Guinea (formal), French Guinea (obsolete), Guinea-Conakry (variant)
4. Finnish: Guinea
5. French: Guinée f, République f de Guinée (formal), Guinée française (obsolete)
6. German: Guinea n
7. Icelandic: Gínea
8. Italian: Guinea f
9. Norwegian: Guinea, Republikken Guinea (formal)
10. Portuguese: Guiné f, Guiné-Conacri, República f da Guiné f (formal)
11. Spanish: Guinea, República f de Guinea (formal), Guinea Francesa (obsolete)
12. Swedish: Guinea

Origin of name: 

Tuareg aginaw: speechless people, applied by Berbers to blacks speaking unknown tongues

Primary subdivisions: 

Guinea is divided into 34 préfectures. FIPS calls them régions administratives (administrative regions). ISO calls Conakry a gouvernorat (governorate).

Further subdivisions:

See the Subprefectures of Guinea page.

The prefectures are subdivided into 335 sous-préfectures (subprefectures) and five communes (the communes are in Conakry). These, in turn, are subdivided into districts and sectors. The prefectures are also grouped into eight administrative regions, as shown.

Before ~1988, the prefectures were grouped into these "supra-regions":

Origins of names: 

Conakry: local word konakri: across the water

Change history: 

1. 1904: Îles de Los transferred from Sierra Leone to French Guinea by cession.
2. ~1980: Name of Youkoukoun region changed to Koundara.
3. ~1985: Coyah region split from Dubréka; Koubia and Lélouma regions split from Labé; Lola region split from Nzérékoré; Mandiana region formed from parts of Kankan and Siguiri.

Other names of subdivisions: 

1. Conakry: Conacri (Portuguese); Konakry (obsolete)
2. Guéckédou: Guékédou (variant)
3. Koundara: Youkoukoun, Youkounkoun (obsolete)