A tehsil (Hindustani pronunciation: [tɛɦsiːl], also known as tahsil, taluk, or taluka) is a local unit of administrative division in India and Pakistan.
It is a subdistrict of the area within a district including the designated populated place that serves as its administrative centre, with possible additional towns, and usually a number of villages.
[2] In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, a newer unit called mandal (circle) has come to replace the tehsil system.
[3] In West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, community development blocks are the empowered grassroots administrative unit, replacing tehsils.
Tehsil office is primarily tasked with land revenue administration, besides election and executive functions.
For example, Raipur district in Chhattisgarh state is administratively divided into 13 tehsils and 15 revenue blocks.
In Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, taluka or taluk is more common.
Since these terms are unfamiliar to English speakers outside the subcontinent, the word county has sometimes been provided as a gloss, on the basis that a tehsil, like a county, is an administrative unit hierarchically above the local city, town, or village, but subordinate to a larger state or province.