Asum is anadministrative division used inChina,Mongolia, andRussia. Countries such as China and Mongolia have employed the sum as administrative division, which was used during theQing dynasty. This system was acted in the 1980s after theChinese Communist Party gained power in conjunction with their growing internal and external problems. The decentralisation of government included restructuring of organisational methods, reduction of roles in rural government and creation of sums.[1]
Asum (Mongolian:сум,ᠰᠤᠮᠤ,[sʰo̙m]) is the second level administrative division below theaimags (provinces), roughly comparable to acounty in theUnited States. There are 330 sums in Mongolia. Each sum is again divided intobags,bag being commonly translated as "brigade."[2]
InRussia, asumon is an administrative division of theTuva Republic, andsomon is that of theBuryat Republic. Both describe the Russian termselsoviet.
InInner Mongolia, asum (ᠰᠤᠮᠤ), sometimes called asumu (Chinese:苏木;pinyin:sūmù), is anadministrative division. Thesum division is equivalent to atownship but is unique to Inner Mongolia. It is therefore larger than agaqa (ᠭᠠᠴᠠᠭᠠ гацаа) and smaller than abanner (theInner Mongolia equivalent of thecounty-level division). Examples includeShiwei, Inner Mongolia andHonggor Sum, Siziwang Banner.
Sums whose population is predominated byethnic minorities are designatedethnic sums – parallel with theethnic township in the rest of China. As of 2010[update], there is only one ethnic sum in China, theEvenk Ethnic Sum.