County (China)
The term xian is sometimes translated as "district" or "prefecture" when put in the context of Chinese history.Xian have existed since the Warring States period and were set up nationwide by the Qin dynasty.[citation needed] In Imperial China, the county was a significant administrative unit because it marked the lowest level of the imperial bureaucratic structure;[citation needed] in other words, it was the lowest level that the government reached.After the Chinese Civil War, counties became subordinate to prefectural level cities while the previous structure is retained.The counties became directly governed by the Executive Yuan after the provinces became streamlined in 1998, but they were fully abolished in 2018.