The counties of Iran, also called shahrestan (Persian: شهرستان‎‎ shahrestān), are administrative divisions of larger provinces (ostan). The word shahrestan comes from the Persian words shahr ("city, town") and stān ("province, state"). "County", therefore, is a near equivalent of shahrestan. Iranian counties are divided into one or more bakhsh (بخش), or districts. A typical county includes both cities (شهر shahr) and rural agglomerations (دهستان dehestān), which are groupings of adjacent villages. One city within the county serves as the capital of that county.