shire

Shire comes from Middle English schire, from Old English sċīr, meaning an administrative region under an alderman and sheriff, or a district under a governor. That traces back to Proto-West Germanic *skīru, meaning district or the status of an official, an office.

The word has stayed remarkably close to its original sense: a region defined by who governs it, still visible today in the county names of England.

It's possibly related to Latin cūra, meaning care or administration, both perhaps going back to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning to heed or to see — the idea of a place being watched over or minded.