Prefecture
Appearance
![](http://chped.net/https/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Prefectures_of_Greece.png)
A prefecture is a word used in Greece and Japan (called νομός, nomós in Greece and called 県 ken in Japan) for a
part of a country with its own government. It is a kind of local government.
It is like an American state or a British county.
In France, it is the head of the department (see Prefectures in France for more detail).