People's communes (人民公社 Pinyin: renmin gongshe), in the People's Republic of China, were formerly the highest of three administrative levels in rural areas in the period from 1958 to 1982-85, when they were replaced by townships. Communes, the largest collective units, were divided in turn into production brigades and production teams. The communes had governmental, political, and economic functions. Pinyin (拼音, pīnyīn) literally means join (together) sounds (a less literal translation being phoneticize, spell or transcription) in Chinese and usually refers to Hànyǔ Pīnyīn (汉语拼音, literal meaning: Han language pinyin), which is a system of romanization (phonetic notation and transliteration to roman script) for Standard Mandarin used in the... The Peoples Republic of China (PRC) comprises most of the cultural, historic, and geographic area known as China. ... The term township generally means the district or area associated with a town. ...

See also: Political divisions of China Due to Chinas large population and area, the political divisions of China have always consisted of several levels since ancient times. ...