Electoral district

An electoral district (also known as a constituency, riding, ward, division, electoral area or electorate) is a territorial subdivision for electing members to a legislative body. Generally, only voters (constituents) who reside within the district are permitted to vote in an election held there. From a single district, a single member or multiple members might be chosen. Members might be chosen by a first past the post system or a proportional representative system, or another method entirely. Members might be chosen through an election with universal suffrage or an indirect election, or some other method.

Terminology

Electoral district (Canada)

An electoral district in Canada, also known as a "constituency" or a "riding", is a geographical constituency upon which Canada's representative democracy is based. It is officially known in Canadian French as a circonscription, but frequently called a comté (county).

Each federal electoral districts returns one Member of Parliament (MP) to the Canadian House of Commons; each provincial or territorial electoral district returns one representative — called, depending on the province or territory, Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA), Member of the National Assembly (MNA), Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) or Member of the House of Assembly (MHA) — to the provincial or territorial legislature.

While electoral districts in Canada are now exclusively single-member districts, multiple-member districts have been used at the federal and provincial levels. Alberta has had a few districts that returned from two to seven members: see Calgary, Edmonton and Medicine Hat. British Columbia had a mix of multiple-member districts in Vancouver and single-member districts elsewhere until the 1991 election, and Prince Edward Island had dual-member districts until the 1996 election.