Three articles about province relating to capital city (8)
I believe the answer is:
athenian
'province relating to capital city' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this definition defines the answer.
'three articles about' is the wordplay.
'three articles' means three substitutions for 'article'.
'article' becomes 'a' (indefinite article).
'article' becomes 'the' (the 'definite article' part of speech).
'article' becomes 'nain' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'about' says the letters should be written backwards.
'nain' in reverse letter order is 'nian'.
'a'+'the'+'nian'='ATHENIAN'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for athenian that I've seen before include "City dweller" , "Resident of Greek capital" , "One from the Greek capital" , "Is the Greek in AA then?" , "foreign capital" .)