Administrative divisions of Yugoslavia

Each Yugoslav republic was free to organize administrative and territorial divisions by its own laws, enabling them to establish, merge, or abolish local and regional units by their own decision.

[2] The following Law on People's Committees in 1946 introduced a complex system of local administration, both with administrative and techno-functional units: settlements (villages or small towns), cities which are part of a wider srez, cities with srez status, okrugs, and obasts.

[2] The 1946 law did not mention municipalities and instead referred to local people's boards/units as the primary organizational structure.

[2] The 1974 Yugoslav Constitution requested municipalities to join into Inter-municipal regional communities to which they entrust certain rights and duties in the common interest, and with the legal option to devolve certain responsibilities from the Serbian federal unit to the inter-municipal regional communities level.

[2] Excluding the autonomous provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo (which organized their local self-government) and the City of Belgrade, Central Serbia was divided into eight inter-municipal regional communities with 98 municipalities.

[3] In 1949, the Republic was divided into 6 oblasts (Bjelovar, Osijek, Karlovac, Rijeka, Split, and Zagreb), the latter of which only remained in place until 1951.

In February of 1942, the Supreme Headquarters of the Yugoslav Partisans introduced some of the first regulations on the formation, organization, and work of the national liberation committees in the free territory known as the Foča Regulations [sh], which defined the local national liberation committees as temporary organs of the people's government to be elected freely and directly by the electorate.

[1] The first committees were formed in Bosanska Krajina and east Bosnia, with their numbers rising to 911 villages, 131 municipalities, 19 srezs, and one oblast (Herzegovina) in 1942.

[1] At its second session in Sanski Most in 1944, the State Anti-fascist Council for the National Liberation of Bosnia and Herzegovina regulated local national liberation committees' elections, defining them as the "foundation of the people's government in Federal Bosnia and Herzegovina".

[4] Following the 1963 Yugoslav Constitution, the official competencies of srezs were abolished and the number of municipalities was reduced to 32.

In 1949, new regional administrative units (oblast) were established; there were four of them (Littoral, Nova Gorica, Maribor, Ljubljana).

The number of districts was reduced to eight (Celje, Nova Gorica, Koper, Kranj, Ljubljana, Maribor, Murska Sobota, Novo Mesto) by 1960, to four (Celje, Koper, Ljubljana, Maribor) by 1964,[7] and then they were finally abolished with a constitutional act in 1965.

Additionally, local communities (krajevna skupnost) were defined as subdivisions to provide basic amenities and serve as a venue of direct democracy.