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Amt is a type of administrative division governing a group of municipalities, today only in Germany, but formerly also common in other countries of Northern Europe. Its size and functions differ by country and the term is roughly equivalent to a British or U.S. county.
Other German states had this division in the past. Some states have similar administrative units called Samtgemeinde (Lower Saxony), Verbandsgemeinde (Rhineland-Palatinate) or Verwaltungsgemeinschaft (Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia).
Larger municipalities do not belong to an Amt and are called amtsfreie Gemeinden (independent municipalities); some of these municipalities might also not be governed by or linked with a Kreis (district) and are called kreisfreie Gemeinden, and when they do also not belong to any other Land they are also called Stadtstaaten (plural of Stadtstaat), i.e. city-states (Berlin and Hamburg).
These large municipalities (cities, in German Städte, plural of Stadt) may be further divided into local offices named Ortsämter (plural of Ortsamt), each of them possibly grouping several suburbs (or small townships in rural areas) of the municipality named Ortsteile (plural of Ortsteil), named from small villages or hamlets or localities. The Ortsteil (suburb or township) may have been a former parish, but today it is meant only for civil purpose and essentially used for planning within the municipality; the Ortsamt (sometimes just named informally but confusingly as an Amt, or informally translated as an "urban district") is used to offer decentralized services of the municipality within local administrative offices for the residents in neighbouring suburbs. The Ortsteil itself may also be confusingly translated as a "municipality", but it is incorrect because it belongs to a city which is the only effective municipality ( Gemeinde).
During the 20th century, the powers of the counties were expanded, when they were granted responsibility for the hospital service. The købstæder, which by this time had been separated from the counties and were overseen by the Interior Ministry, assumed the same responsibility. As the population became increasingly urbanized, and many rural communities came to rely on the hospital services of the købstader without paying taxes for them, it became evident that reform was necessary. In 1958, interior minister Søren Olesen set in motion administrative reforms that would culminate in 1970.
The municipal reform of 1 April 1970 reduced the number of counties to fourteen and eliminated the administrative distinction between (rural) parish and town. From then on, the amter were composed of a number of municipalities ( kommuner). The reform granted the counties wider areas of responsibility, most notably running the national health service and the gymnasium secondary schools.
The municipal reform of 1 January 2007 abolished the amter and replaced them with five administrative regions, now mainly charged with running the national health service. In contrast to the amter, the regions hold no authority to levy taxes. The reform re-delegated all other areas of responsibility to either the municipalities or the state. At the same time, smaller municipalities were merged into larger units, cutting the number of municipalities from 270 to 98.
Amts are not used to denote a geographical region in Iceland but the name lives on in the names of two public libraries in Iceland that were established during the amt era. The Amts libraries in Akureyri and Stykkishólmur which were established as the designated archives for the North and East Amt and the West Amt respectively.
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