Consulate

From the Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change

A consulate is an small official office of country in another. The main office is called an Embassy, and is in the capital city. Consulates are in other large towns and usually do not do all of the jobs of the embassy.

Consulates usually deal with questions about passports for their own citizens, visas for foreigners wanting to visit the consulate's home country and licences for import and export.

Some larger and more important countries might also have Consulates General. These are simply bigger consulates which might do more than a smaller consulate.

People who work in any sort of consulates are called consular officers. The person in charge is called a consul, or consul general. An honorary consul does not work full time for the government. They are usually in port towns, to speed up issuing documents for trade. An honorary consul might be a citizen of the country he works for, or have another link such as parents or grandparents or they may have married someone from there. They usually work in an office, use their office as the honorary consulate.

Consular officers have diplomatic immunity.