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Encyclopedic overview
A canton is a type of administrative division of a country. In general, cantons are relatively small in terms of area and population when compared with other administrative divisions, such as counties, departments, or provinces. Internationally, the most politically important cantons are the Swiss cantons. As the constituents of the Swiss Confederation, theoretically and historically, they are semi-sovereign states.
The term is derived from the French word canton, meaning "corner" or "district" (from which "cantonment" is also derived).
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “canton” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.