Areas are geographic regions or settlements. Areas are usually kept in sync with their :doc:`Wikidata </miscellaneous/wikidata>` entries. To request that an area be added to Musicbrainz submit a bug request under the AREQ category. See the list of current AREQ issues for more information.
Name
The name of the area.
Type
The type of area. Possible values are:
- Country
- Country is used for areas included (or previously included) in ISO 3166-1, e.g. United States.
- Subdivision
- Subdivision is used for the main administrative divisions of a country, e.g. California, Ontario, Okinawa. These are considered when displaying the parent areas for a given area.
- County
- County is used for smaller administrative divisions of a country which are not the main administrative divisions but are also not municipalities, e.g. counties in the USA. These are not considered when displaying the parent areas for a given area.
- Municipality
- Municipality is used for small administrative divisions which, for urban municipalities, often contain a single city and a few surrounding villages. Rural municipalities typically group several villages together.
- City
- City is used for settlements of any size, including towns and villages.
- District
- District is used for a division of a large city, e.g. Queens.
- Island
- Island is used for islands and atolls which don't form subdivisions of their own, e.g. Skye. These are not considered when displaying the parent areas for a given area.
Begin and end dates
The dates indicate when a certain area was founded and/or ceased to exist. For example, the Soviet Union has a begin date of 1922 and an end date of 1991.
ISO 3166 codes
The ISO 3166 codes are the codes assigned by ISO to countries and subdivisions.
Aliases
The :doc:`aliases </terminology/terms/alias>` are used to store alternate names or misspellings.
MBID
See the :doc:`page about MBIDs </terminology/terms/mbid>` for more information.
Annotation
See the :doc:`page about annotations </terminology/terms/annotation>` for more information.