Riding

:This article is about the riding as a unit of local government and as an electoral district; for usage of the more common homonym, a form of the verb to ride, see horse and related articles such as riding animal.

Canada

In Canadian politics, a riding is a colloquial term for a constituency or electoral district. Officially, "electoral district" is generally used, although government documents sometimes use the colloquial term.

Related Topics:
Canadian politics - Constituency - Electoral district

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The Canadian use of "riding" is derived from the English local government term, which was widely used in Canada in the 19th century. Most Canadian counties never had sufficient population to justify administrative sub-divisions. Nonetheless, it was common, especially in Ontario, to divide counties with sufficient population into multiple electoral districts, which thus became known as "ridings" in official documents. Soon after Confederation, the urban population grew (and more importantly, most city dwellers gained the franchise after property ownership was no longer required to gain the vote). Rural constituencies therefore became geographically larger through the 20th century and generally encompassed one or more counties each, and the word "riding" was then used to refer to any electoral division.

Related Topics:
English - 19th century - Ontario - 20th century

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In the predominantly francophone province of Quebec, the equivalent term is comté, i.e. "county".

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The local association for a political party is known as a riding association.

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