A lieutenant governor, lieutenant-governor, or vice governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction, but is often the deputy or lieutenant to or ranking under a governor — a "second-in-command". A notable exception to this would be in Canada and a few other Commonwealth realms, in which the lieutenant governor is the representative of the monarch in that jurisdiction.
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In many Commonwealth of Nations states, a lieutenant governor is the representative of the monarch and acts as the nominal chief executive officer of the realm, although by convention the lieutenant governor delegates actual executive power to the premier of a province. The Dutch political system also includes and has included lieutenant governors, who act as executors of overseas possessions. In India, lieutenant governors are in charge of special administrative divisions in that country.
In the United States, lieutenant governors are usually second-in-command to a state governor, and the actual power held by the lieutenant governor varies greatly from state to state. The lieutenant governor is often first in line of succession to the governorship, and acts as governor when the governor leaves the state or is unable to serve.
Lieutenant governors in the former British Empire
Lieutenant governors in the Kingdom of the Netherlands
Lieutenant governors (Dutch: gezaghebber) of the former Dutch constituent country of Netherlands Antilles acted as head of the governing council of the island territories, which formed a level of decentral government until the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles in 2010. Currently the Netherlands has a lieutenant governor overseeing each of the three special municipalities in the Caribbean Netherlands — Saba, Bonaire, and Sint Eustatius — where their function is similar to a mayor in the European Netherlands.