Emirate

An emirate is a political territory that is ruled by an emir, a dynastic Arab Monarch.^[1] The word emirate or amirate comes from Arabic: إمارة, Imaarah ; plural: إمارات, Imaraat. The United Arab Emirates is a federal state of seven federal emirates, each administered by a hereditary emir, these seven elect the federation's President and Prime Minister. Most emirates have either disappeared or become part of a larger modern state, some changed their rulers' title, e.g. to Malik (Arabic for King) or Sultan. Therefore true emirate-states have become rare.

In Arabic the term can be generalized to mean any province of a country that is administered by a member of the ruling class, especially of a member of the royal family, as in Saudi Arabian governorates.^[2]

1. ↑ "emirate". Cambridge Dictionary. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 26 August 2016.
2. ↑ Stig Stenslie, Regime Stability in Saudi Arabia: The Challenge of Succession (London; New York: Routledge, 2012), p. 33