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nomarch (, Diodorus Siculus, Library, 1.73 Great Chief) was a provincial governor in ancient Egypt; the country was divided into 42 provinces, called nomes (singular spꜣ.t]], plural spꜣ.wt). A nomarch was the government official responsible for a nome. More recent studies are more cautious about using this term as it is a Greek word that does not exactly match Ancient Egyptian administrative titlesJessica Tomkins: The Misnomer of Nomarchs Οἱ νομάρχαι and Provincial Administrators of the Old-Middle Kingdoms, in Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde, Volume 145 Issue 1, 95–104 and modern scholars often prefer other, more neural words for describing the heads of the provinces, such as governor.Alexander Ilion-Tomich: The Governor's Court in Late Middle Kingdom Antaeopolis, in Revue d'Égyptologie 68 (2018), 61-78.
The power of the nomarchs grew with the reforms of Nyuserre's second successor, Djedkare Isesi, which effectively decentralized the Egyptian state. The post of nomarch then quickly became hereditary, thereby creating a virtual feudal system where local allegiances slowly superseded obedience to the pharaoh. Less than 200 years after Djedkare's reign, the nomarchs had become the all-powerful heads of the provinces. At the dawn of the First Intermediate Period, the power of the Pharaohs of the 8th Dynasty had diminished to the extent that they Coptos Decrees to the most powerful nomarchs, upon whom they could only bestow titles and honours.
The power of the nomarchs remained important during the later royal revival under the impulse of the 11th Dynasty, originally a family of Theban nomarchs. Their power diminished during the subsequent 12th Dynasty, setting the stage for the apex of royal power during the Middle Kingdom.
The title is also in use in modern Greece for the heads of the prefectures of Greece, which were also titled nomos (pl. νομοί, nomoi; νομαρχία, nomarchia also being used to refer to the area within a nomarch's purview).
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