region vs shire

region

noun
  • The inhabitants of a region or district of a country. 

  • Any considerable and connected part of a space or surface; specifically, a tract of land or sea of considerable but indefinite extent; a country; a district; in a broad sense, a place without special reference to location or extent but viewed as an entity for geographical, social or cultural reasons. 

  • A subnational region of Chile; equivalent to province. 

  • An administrative subdivision of the European Union. 

  • A subprovincial region of Quebec; the primary level subdivision; a prefecture. 

  • A place in or a part of the body in any way indicated. 

  • Such a division of the city of Rome and of the territory about Rome, of which the number varied at different times; a district, quarter, or ward. 

shire

noun
  • A rural or outer suburban local government area of Australia. 

  • A shire horse. 

  • The general area in which a person lives or comes from, used in the context of travel within the United Kingdom. 

  • Physical area administered by a sheriff. 

  • Former administrative area of Britain; a county. 

verb
  • County Longford was shired in 1586 

  • To (re)constitute as one or more shires or counties. 

How often have the words region and shire occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )