province

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A territory governed as an administrative or political unit of a country or empire.
• noun Ecclesiastical A division of territory under the jurisdiction of a metropolitan.
• noun Areas of a country situated away from the capital or population center.
• noun An area of knowledge, activity, or interest: synonym: field.
• noun The range of one's proper duties and functions; scope.
• noun Ecology An area of land, less extensive than a region, having a characteristic plant and animal population.
• noun Any of various lands outside Italy conquered by the Romans and administered by them as self-contained units.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun Originally, a country of considerable extent which, being reduced under Roman dominion, was remodeled, subjected to the rule of a governor sent from Rome, and charged with such taxes and contributions as the Romans saw fit to impose. The earliest Roman province was Sicily.
• noun An administrative division of a country: as, the provinces of Spain; the former provinces of France; more loosely, any important administrative unit, as one of the governments of Russia or of the crownlands of Austria.
• noun A part of a country or state as distinguished from the capital or the larger cities; the country: usually in the plural: as, an actor who is starring in the provinces.
• noun Eccles., the territory within which an arch bishop or a metropolitan exercises jurisdiction: as, the province of Canterbury; the province of Illinois.
• noun In the Roman Catholic Church, one of the territorial divisions of an ecclesiastical order, as of the Franciscans, or of the Propaganda.
• noun A region of country; a tract; a large extent.
• noun The proper duty, office, or business of a person; sphere of action; function.
• noun A division in any department of knowledge or activity; a department.
• noun In zoology, a prime division of animals; a phylum; a subkingdom; a branch; a type: as, in Owen's classification, the four provinces — Vertebrate., Articulata, Mollusca, and Radiata. The prime divisions of a province are called subprovinces.
• noun In zoögeog., a subregion; a faunal area less extensive than a region. Thus, the Nearctic or North American region is zoologically divided into the eastern, middle, and western provinces.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun (Roman Hist.) A country or region, more or less remote from the city of Rome, brought under the Roman government; a conquered country beyond the limits of Italy.
• noun A country or region dependent on a distant authority; a portion of an empire or state, esp. one remote from the capital.
• noun A region of country; a tract; a district.
• noun A region under the supervision or direction of any special person; the district or division of a country, especially an ecclesiastical division, over which one has jurisdiction.
• noun The proper or appropriate business or duty of a person or body; office; charge; jurisdiction; sphere.
• noun Specif.: Any political division of the Dominion of Canada, having a governor, a local legislature, and representation in the Dominion parliament. Hence, colloquially, The Provinces, the Dominion of Canada.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A subdivision of government usually one step below the national level.
• noun A territorial area within a country.
• noun A jurisdiction; a (literal or figurative) area of authority.
• proper noun UK Northern Ireland

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun the proper sphere or extent of your activities
• noun the territory occupied by one of the constituent administrative districts of a nation