Governor

Indeed, many regions of the pre-Roman antiquity were ultimately replaced by Roman 'standardized' provincial governments after their conquest by Rome.

The core function of a Roman governor was as a magistrate or judge, and the management of taxation and the public spending in their area.

The first emperor, Octavianus Augustus (who acquired or settled a number of new territories; officially his style was republican: Princeps civitatis), divided the provinces into two categories; the traditionally prestigious governorships remained as before (in what have become known as "senatorial" provinces), while in a range of others, he retained the formal governorship himself, delegating the actual task of administration to appointees (usually with the title legatus Augusti).

The legatus sometimes would appoint a prefect (later procurator), usually a man of equestrian rank, to act as his deputy in a subregion of the larger province: the infamous character of Pontius Pilate in the Christian Gospels was a governor of this sort.

A special case was Egypt, a rich 'private' domain and vital granary, where the emperor almost inherited the theocratic status of a pharaoh.

Emperors Diocletian (see Tetrarchy) and Constantine in the third and fourth centuries AD carried out a root and branch reorganisation of the administration with two main features: The prestigious governorships of Africa and Asia remained with the title proconsul, and the special right to refer matters directly to the emperor; the praefectus augustalis in Alexandria and the comes Orientis in Antioch also retained special titles.

The prefectures were directed by praefecti praetorio (greatly transformed in their functions from their role in the early Empire).

This system survived with few significant changes until the collapse of the empire in the West, and in the East, the breakdown of order with the Persian and Arab invasions of the seventh century.

It was a role leading the themes which replaced provinces at this point, involving a return to the amalgamation of civil and military office which had been the practice under the Republic and the early Empire.

In the Ottoman Empire, all pashas (generals) administered a province of the Great Sultan's vast empire, with specific titles (such as Mutessaryf; Vali or Wāli which was often maintained and revived in the oriental successor states; Beilerbei (rendered as governor-general, as he is appointed above several provinces under individual governors) and Dey) In the British Empire, a governor was originally an official appointed by the British monarch (or the cabinet) to oversee a crown colony and was the (sometimes notional) head of the colonial administration.

Today, crown colonies of the United Kingdom continue to be administered by governors who hold varying degrees of power.

As with the governors-general of Australia and other Commonwealth realms, state governors usually exercise their power only on the advice of a government minister.

Since the reign of Henry VIII, the monarch has borne the title of Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

See: In the Russian Empire, the governorate (guberniya) and governorate-general were the main units of territorial and administrative subdivision since the reforms of Peter the Great.

A special case was the Chinese Eastern Railway Zone, which was governed as a concession granted by Imperial China to the Russian 'Chinese Eastern Railway Society' (in Russian Obshchestvo Kitayskoy Vostochnoy Zheleznoy Dorogi; established on 17 December 1896 in St. Petersburg, later moved to Vladivostok), which built 1,481 km of tracks (Tarskaya – Hilar – Harbin – Nikolsk-Ussuriski; 3 November 1901 traffic opened) and established on 16 May 1898 the new capital city, Harbin; in August 1898, the defense for Chinese Eastern Railway (CER) across northeast China was assumed by Russia (first under Priamur governor).

After the debate, conducted by State Duma in April 2012, the direct elections of governors were expected to be restored.

[2] A Landeshauptmann (German for "state captain" or "state governor", literally 'country headman'; plural Landeshauptleute or Landeshauptmänner as in Styria till 1861; Landeshauptfrau is the female form) is an official title in German for certain political offices equivalent to a governor.

The governors were at the height of their power from the middle of the 16th to the middle of the 17th century, but their role in provincial unrest during the civil wars led Cardinal Richelieu to create the more tractable positions of intendants of finance, policing and justice, and in the 18th century the role of provincial governors was greatly curtailed.

In the People's Republic of China, the title Governor (Chinese: 省长; pinyin: shěngzhǎng) refers to the highest ranking executive of a provincial government.

Principally, the governor has the tasks and the authorities to lead governmental services in the province, based upon the policies that have been made together with the provincial parliament.

The governor is not the superordinate of regents or mayors, but only guides supervises, and coordinates the works of city/municipal and regency governments.

In Japan,[8] the title Governor (知事, chiji) refers to the highest ranking executive of a prefectural government.

In Malaysia, each of the four non-monarchical states (Penang, Malacca, Sabah and Sarawak) has a ceremonial governor styled Yang di-Pertua Negeri, appointed to a renewable four-year term by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, the federal King of Malaysia, on the advice of the prime minister after consulting the state governments.

In the Philippines, the title Governor (Gobernador or Punong Lalawigan in Filipino) refers to the highest-ranking executive of a province.

Bangsamoro, its replacement, has the wa'lī (Arabic for "governor") as its head of the region and is elected by parliament for a six-year term.

Governors retain sovereign power over executive and judiciary, are subordinate to the president of the United States and laws provided by the enumerated powers section of the federal constitution, and serve as the political and ceremonial head of the state.

In the early years of the American Revolutionary War, eleven of the Thirteen Colonies evicted (with varying levels of violence) royal and proprietary governors.

Administered by the federal government, they had governors who were appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate rather than elected by the resident population.

In Mexico, governor refers to the elected leader of each of the nation's thirty-one Free and Sovereign States with the official Spanish title being Gobernador.