Bali was part of the province of Nusa Tenggara Barat when Indonesia was founded in 1945. Since August 14, 1959, together with the neighboring islands, it forms one of the 34 provinces of the republic. All provincial regions of Indonesia are managed by a governor, who is directly subordinate to the president. The governor of Bali, Made Mangku Pastika since 2008, is based in the capital Denpasar. The province of Bali (since 1992) is divided into eight Kabupats (government districts) and one Kota (the district of Denpasar), whose bupati (district council) or walikota (mayor) are subordinate to the governor. These Kabupaten are divided into 57 Kecamatan (districts). The number of desa (villages) has remained unchanged since 2011 and is around 716. They are governed by a kepala desa (village head). The villages in turn are divided into banjars (village districts), which are managed by a klian.
The addition adat means traditional, i.e. Balinese-Hindu. A few villages consciously remain at the cultural level before the Hindu influence. These are mainly in the east and on Lake Batur. They are referred to as Bali Aga (Old Bali). There are also individual camps of islam, places with islamic, and desa kristen, with christian populations.
In Bali, mainly Balinese (basa Bali) and Indonesian (bahasa Indonesia) are spoken. English is also widely spoken as a non-Indonesian language due to tourism. Depending on the main tourist origin on site, Dutch (Sanur), Japanese (Ubud) and occasionally also German, Russian, Italian or French are spoken, insofar as this is necessary for the traffic with tourists. In addition to the languages mentioned, Mandarin is also taught in private schools.