Administrative divisions of Chad

The administrative divisions of Chad have often changed since 1900, when the territory was first created by France as part of its colonial empire, with the name Territoire Militaire des pays et protectorats du Tchad.

[9] The first Governor-General of French Equatorial Africa, Martial Merlin, built in 1910 for all the colonies he administered a two levels structure.

Chad was divided in 9 circonscriptions (circumscriptions), with Fort-Lamy (today N'Djamena) as capital; two years later, as an underdivision of the regions, the subdivisions were introduced.

[2] The Mayo-Kebbi circumscription disappeared in 1911 when the left bank of the Logone River was ceded to the German colony of Kamerun as part of the exchange for the French protectorate over Morocco.

[12][13] The radicality of these centralization measures proved themselves unsustainable, causing their reversion on the return to the previous structure of the AEF in 1936.

In that year Logone and Moyen-Chari were returned to Chad while both Kanem-Batha and Chari-Baguirmi were split restoring the original 10 subdivisions.