U.S. Coast Guard Ends Use of WWII-Era Numbered Districts

 
The U.S. Coast Guard announced Thursday that it will replace all the hard-to-remember numerical designations of its operational districts with geographic names, abandoning a World War II-era system held over from the service's stint as part of the Navy. 

The renaming, ordered by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in May, is a shift for the maritime service and a small part of its restructuring program under Force Design 2028. It appears to change little on the ground, but makes the service's regional divisions a bit easier to communicate to the public. The nine districts will adopt names like Northeast, Southeast, and Arctic, replacing the numbered system.

"This renaming is more than just a change in labels; it's a critical step in our journey to become a more agile, capable, and responsive fighting force," said Acting Commandant Kevin E. Lunday in a statement Thursday.

The numerical district system was established when the Coast Guard was transferred to the Navy during World War II, and matches the Navy's regional nomenclature of the era. While the Coast Guard returned to civilian control after the war, it maintained the numbered districts - long after the Navy, which abandoned its version of this numerical region system at the turn of the century. 

In addition to improving comms with industry and with the public, the new names should help improve coordination with other federal agencies that use geographic naming systems.  

Officials emphasized that the name changes will not affect day-to-day operations or alter existing district boundaries. The Coast Guard plans to formalize the new names through changes to the Code of Federal Regulations. Since many of the names already existed informally alongside the district numbers - e.g. Coast Guard Heartland, a well-known and commonly-used name for District 8 - the transition should be easy to understand for industry.