This introduction aims at exploring the difficult borders of sub-national governance. One of its central purposes is to offer an accessible point of entry into de multiple features of local and regional governance, through a model able to provide a comprehensive but organized map of such features. In charting an own model, I built on the distinct goals that I had for this volume: to provide theoretical and empirical context to the debates on local and regional governance, to organize the multiple approaches and dimensions usually under consideration, to make it a point of reference for future analytical discussion and, finally, to establish a strong baseline that might inspire future research.