Administrative organization of Rwanda

Rwanda has five provinces (intara, “in-har-ah”): North, East, South, West, and Kigali (which lies roughly in the middle). Each province is broken into districts (akarere, “ah-kah-ray-ray”), of which there are 32 in total. Each district has 8-12 sectors (umurenga, “oo-moo-reng-ah”), which are each broken into about 10 cells (akagari, “ah-kah-gah-ree”) and finally cells are divided into about 10 umudugudus each. Umudugudu may be translated as village, but that’s a bit of a misnomer. An umudugudu is an administrative unit that can be a rural community aptly called a village or an urban administrative unit without a distinct identity or somewhere in between.

There are governors for the Provinces, mayors for the districts, and executive secretaries for sectors and cells as well as umudugudu leaders. Services are organized by these units: hospitals in districts and health centers in sectors, offices to register various entities like cooperatives, etc.