Before the 2015 repartitioning all but three provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo were divided into 26 districts. Those in turn were divided into territories or communes.
The provinces of Maniema, Nord-Kivu and Sud-Kivu were not divided into districts. Those three provinces and all other districts were divided into territories. All provinces had one or more cities, which were administratively independent of the districts; in turn those were divided into communes. Except for two, the districts were led by district commissioners.
Districts and cities, other than the capital city of Kinshasa, and their territories or communes consisted of the following before the repartition:
Note: Boma and Kolwezi District were a city/district hybrid in the sense that they had both commune and territory divisions and were led by a mayor instead of a district commissioner.
The city of Kinshasa is said to be divided into 4 so-called districts and 24 communes:
These "districts" are not general-government subdivisions under a single administration and a single leader, but are districts used to administer government services such as police, water, schools and so on. They aren't subdivisions of the country. The administrative divisions of Kinshasa are the communes.
The 2006 constitution planned to convert many of the districts into provinces under a decentralization program. However, progress was slow. In October 2007 the Minister for Decentralization, Denis Kalume Numbi, presented a bill for Decentralization in the National Assembly. The subsequent debate turned up a variety of issues that first had to be addressed with changes to related laws. In an October 2010 conclave of the ruling AMP coalition, it was proposed to revise Article 226, which calls for the creation of 26 provinces out of the current 11, in order to allow more time for the transition. In September 2011 the position of "Minister of Decentralization" was abolished. In July 2015 the implementation of the new organization was completed.