Countries such as China and Mongolia have employed the sum as administrative division, which was used during the Qing dynasty.
This system was acted in the 1980s after the Chinese Communist Party gained power in conjunction with their growing internal and external problems.
[1] A sum (Mongolian: сум, ᠰᠤᠮᠤ, [sʰo̙m]) is the second level administrative division below the aimags (provinces), roughly comparable to a county in the United States.
In Inner Mongolia, a sum (ᠰᠤᠮᠤ), sometimes called a sumu (Chinese: 苏木; pinyin: sūmù), is an administrative division.
It is therefore larger than a gaqa (ᠭᠠᠴᠠᠭᠠ гацаа) and smaller than a banner (the Inner Mongolia equivalent of the county-level division).