Partition

Generally, a partition is a splitting of something into parts. The term is used in a variety of senses:

Chemistry

 * Nernst partition law
 * Partitioning, a synonym for liquid-liquid extraction

Computer science

 * Disk partitioning, the dividing of a hard disk's storage space into independent parts
 * Logical partitioning (LPAR), for dividing a computer into several independent virtual computers
 * Partition also refers to an algorithm used in quicksort which separates a list into two sublists, those elements less than or equal to a value and those greater than it. It is also used in selection algorithms.
 * Partition (database) for splitting a database and access.
 * Partition problem, an NP-complete problem: given a set of integers, can the set be partitioned into two subsets with equal sums?

Law

 * Partition (law), to divide up a piece of land into separate portions representing the proportionate interests of the tenants. It may also consist of dividing a property with common ownership into identifiable individual ownership.

Mathematics

 * List of partition topics
 * Partition of a set, a collection of non-empty subsets such that every element belongs to one and only one of the subsets
 * Partition (number theory), a way to write a positive integer as a sum of other positive integers; the partition function gives the number of different ways to partition a number
 * Partition problem, an NP-complete problem: given a set of integers, can the set be partitioned into two subsets with equal sums?
 * A partition of unity is a set of functions whose sum is the constant function
 * Partition of an interval, used in the theory of the Riemann integral and the Riemann-Stieltjes integral

Movie

 * Partition (film)
 * Partition (1987 film)

Physics

 * Partition function (statistical mechanics).
 * Partition function (quantum field theory).

Political geography

 * Partition (politics)

Notable examples are:
 * Partitions of Poland and Poland-Lithuania in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries
 * 1905 Partition of Bengal and 1947 Partition of Bengal
 * Partition of India (colonial British India) in 1947 into the independent dominions (later republics) of India and Pakistan (which included modern day Bangladesh)
 * Partition of Punjab in 1966 into the states of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh
 * Partition of Pakistan in 1971, when East Pakistan became the independent nation of Bangladesh after the Bangladesh Liberation War
 * 1947 UN Partition Plan for Palestine (region)
 * Partition of Ireland in 1920 into the independent Irish Free State and (British) Northern Ireland
 * Treaty of Kars of 1921, which partitioned Ottoman Armenia between the republic of Turkey and the then Soviet Union (Western and Eastern Armenia)
 * Partition of Vietnam in 1954
 * Partitions of Luxembourg, last in 1838 into Duchy of Luxembourg and Belgian province
 * The hypothetical partition of the Canadian province of Quebec