Asian descent was claimed by Karl Heinrich Menges, who considered župan a slavicized form of Altaic čupan (a loanword from Iranian), with modified meaning from "clan, community" to "district". According to research done by scholars Ambroży Bogucki, Bohumil Vykypĕl and Georg Holzer, in 2007 Franjo Smiljanić concluded that is excluded any Avar influence on the origin, yet within the Avar authority were preserved the remnants of Slavic tribal organization. According to Alemany, the (Old) Turkic ču(b) is most probably a Turkic loanword from Khotanese -cū and Chinese zhou (prefecture), which was a Chinese territorial administration applied to Central Asian regions inhabited by Iranians, but it has even older meaning of small island; a township unit; a region, up to zhoumu (regional governor) from Han to Sui dynasty. Alemany pointed out that, as there were settlements of Central Asian Iranians at least in some of those zhou, the title čupan as *ču(b)-pān (protecting a ču(b) or zhou), was an Iranian rendering (see marz-bān, "protecting the marches"), of the Chinese zhoumu. The suffix -pān (from Avestan and Old Persian pat, "protector"; pā-, "to protect, to care") is well documented in Manichean Parthian texts from Turpan, and lesser extent in Sogdian and Khotanese. He concluded that the title designs both regio and rector, and if čupan was a loanword introduced by the Avars as some assumed, but there was already a common Slavic word župa, their association could explain the shift č- > ž- in župan. However, as the title among Avars is undetermined, on the basis of preserved toponyms which are etymologically related to the title župan, like Županovo kolo in Novgorod, Russia, and Župany kolo in Ukraine, as well it was spread in Slavic languages which were not in contact with Avar language, the assumption it was of Avar origin is highly doubtful and dismissed by many scholars as it occurs in wider area than is the area where lived Slavs and Avars together. Usage of the title and division The title had a widespread distribution, and did not always have a concrete institutional definition. Slavic tribes were divided into fraternities, each including a certain number of families. The territory inhabited by a tribe was a župa, and its leader was the župan. The župans, once as kopan, of the First Bulgarian Empire are traditionally seen as Slavic chiefs, or leaders of a local tribe and district. The župan title was