A small territorial or social unit, especially in ancient Greece; also used in biology to mean a local population of organisms.
From Greek demos (township, people, district). The ancient Greek deme was an administrative subdivision of Attica with its own local government and religious practices.
Ancient Athenian democracy ran through demes—Cleisthenes reorganized Athens into demes specifically to break up old aristocratic power structures and give ordinary people local political power they could actually exercise.
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