A legation was the term used in diplomacy

Diplomacy

Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states...

 to denote a diplomatic representative office lower than an embassy. Where an embassy was headed by an Ambassador

Ambassador

An ambassador is the highest ranking diplomat who represents a nation and is usually accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization....

, a legation was headed by a Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary.

The distinction between a legation and embassy was gradually dropped following World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. All diplomatic representative offices are now designated as embassies or high commissions.

A permanent diplomatic mission headed by a chief officer.

See also

• Beijing Legation Quarter
  Beijing Legation Quarter
  The Peking Legation Quarter was the area in Peking where a number of foreign legations were located between 1861 and 1959. In Chinese, the area is known as Dōng jiāomín xiàng , which is the name of the hutong running through the area...
  
  
• American Legation, Tangier
  American Legation, Tangier
  The Tangier American Legation is a building in the medina of Tangier, Morocco. The first American public property outside of the United States, it commemorates the historic cultural and diplomatic relations between the United States and the Kingdom of Morocco...
  
  
• Concession (territory)
  Concession (territory)
  In international law, a concession is a territory within a country that is administered by an entity other than the state which holds sovereignty over it. This is usually a colonizing power, or at least mandated by one, as in the case of colonial chartered companies.Usually, it is conceded, that...
  
  
• Papal Legations
  Papal Legations
  The term Papal Legation, in a territorial sense, refers to certain northern administrative regions of the erstwhile Papal States: specifically the "Legations" of Ferrara, Bologna, and Romagna. In 1860, after the Second Italian War of Independence, the Papal Legations entered through a referendum...
  
   — Certain administrative regions of the erstwhile Papal States
  Papal States
  The Papal State, State of the Church, or Pontifical States were among the major historical states of Italy from roughly the 6th century until the Italian peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia .The Papal States comprised territories under...
  
  : specifically the "Legations" of Ferrara
  Ferrara
  Ferrara is a city and comune in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north...
  
  , Bologna
  Bologna
  Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
  
  , and Romagna
  Romagna
  Romagna is an Italian historical region that approximately corresponds to the south-eastern portion of present-day Emilia-Romagna. Traditionally, it is limited by the Apennines to the south-west, the Adriatic to the east, and the rivers Reno and Sillaro to the north and west...
  
  .
• Villa Lituania
  Villa Lituania
  Villa Lituania was the inter-war Lithuanian legation building in Rome. The building belonged to Lithuania in the 1930s, but after the country was invaded by the Soviet Union, the legation was taken into Russia’s possession and is still used to house Russian diplomats...