Constituency

A constituency is any cohesive corporate unit or body bound by shared structures, goals or loyalty. It can be used to describe a business's customer base and shareholders, or a charity's donors or those it serves. The most common meaning of constituency occurs in politics and means the group of people or geographical area that a particular elected representative or group of elected representatives represents. The rest of this article deals with this sense of constituency.

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, a parliamentary constituency is sometimes called a Parliamentary seat or a Division. Constituencies for local government elections are called Wards.

Related Topics:
Local government - Wards

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As of 2005, there are 646 House of Commons constituencies in the UK:

Related Topics:
2005 - House of Commons

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• List of Parliamentary constituencies in the United Kingdom
• MPs elected in the UK general election, 2005 lists the constituencies after that election.

Northern Ireland has 18 constituencies, each of which elect six MLAs to the Northern Ireland Assembly under the Single Transferable Vote system.

Related Topics:
Northern Ireland - MLA - Northern Ireland Assembly - Single Transferable Vote

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The Scottish Parliament has 73 single-member constituencies elected on a first past the post basis, with the remaining 56 seats in the parliament being selected by the Additional Member System (AMS). Since the passage of the Scottish Parliament (Constituencies) Act 2004, the constituencies of the Scottish Parliament are no longer identical to those of the House of Commons.

Related Topics:
Scottish Parliament - Additional Member System - Scottish Parliament (Constituencies) Act 2004

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The National Assembly for Wales has 40 constituencies elected by first past the post which are identical to the Welsh constituencies of the House of Commons. Its remaining 20 seats are selected by AMS.

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The London Assembly has 14 constituencies elected by first past the post, described in the article on

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London Assembly constituencies. Its remaining 11 seats are also selected by AMS.

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