The word 'cantons' is correct and usable in written English.
It is often used to refer to a specific administrative division, especially in Switzerland. Example: The country of Switzerland is divided into 26 cantons, each with its own unique culture and traditions.
Its shares, 52.7% of them owned by the Swiss cantons and cantonal banks, are listed on the Swiss stock exchange.
He does not like the redistribution of tax revenues among the cantons, or other proposals for harmonising various policies of cantonal governments.
Cantons have ceded powers to the confederation piecemeal (its right to raise taxes must be reviewed periodically), but have also devolved them to communes.
Although the Alpine cantons started to bind together in medieval days, they developed a single market only in the 19th century—starting, like the EU, with goods and spreading imperfectly to services.
In many cantons (the constituencies that make up the country's departments), such as Carpentras in the south or Carvin in the north, the anti-European populist party came in first.
By reckoning the payments annually according to the tax base (rather than how cantons tax and spend) and by providing lump sums instead of semi-hidden subsidies, the system preserves cantons' freedom of action and also encourages tax competition.None of this is to idealise Switzerland.
One would have dropped the lump-sum tax privileges that some Swiss cantons allow wealthy foreigners.
Egged on by the PKK, Syrian Kurds have established autonomous cantons which Turkey fears will sharpen Kurdish separatism within its own borders.
The usual stereotype breaks down: rich French-speaking cantons like Geneva and Vaud pay for poorer German ones such as Uri.
The big difference, though, is that cantons have drafted their own balanced-budget rules and voters have forced similar ones on the confederation.
The Federation is divided into ten cantons.
