County (United States)

United States of America showing states divided into counties, parishes (Louisiana) or Census Areas (Alaska).

In the United States, a county is a local level of government below the state (or federal territory). Counties are used in 48 of the 50 states, while Louisiana is divided into parishes and Alaska into boroughs. These are considered "county-equivalents", as are independent cities not designated as part of a county. The U.S. Census Bureau lists 3,140 counties or county-equivalent administrative units in total.

There are on average 62 counties per state. As of the 2000 Census, the average U.S. county population is about 100,000. The most heavily populated county of the U.S., Los Angeles County, California, has a population of approximately 9,880,000, which is a larger population than all but eight U.S. states. The least populous counties are Loving County, Texas, population 67, and Kalawao County, Hawaii, a former leper colony, population 147.

The site of a county's administration and courts is called the county seat. The power of the county government varies widely from state to state, as does the distribution of power between the state, counties, and municipalities, which is defined in each state's laws and constitution.

The majority of U.S. counties are named for people. Washington County and Jefferson County are the most common names. Other common sources of county names are geographic features (e.g. "Lake County"), places in other states or countries, Native American tribes, and animals. Quite a few counties bear names of French or Spanish origin.

History

Counties were among the earliest units of local government established in the original Thirteen Colonies. The colony of Virginia established the first counties in what would become the United States when the House of Burgesses divided the colony first into four "incorporations" in 1617 and finally into eight shires in 1634 to ease the administative workload in Jamestown: James City, Henrico, Charles City, Charles River, Warrosquyoake, Accomack, Elizabeth City, and Warwick River. America's oldest intact county court records can be found at Eastville, Virginia in Northampton (originally Accomack) County dating to 1632. Maryland established its first county, St Mary's, in 1637, and Massachusetts followed in 1643. Although counties remained relatively weak in New England, Pennsylvania and New York delegated a significant amount of power and responsibility from the state government to county governments, and thereby established the pattern that remains in place in most of the United States.

County names

Counties are most often named for people, with over 2,100 of the 3,140 total so named. The most common county name, with 31, is Washington County, for America's first president, George Washington. Up until 1871, there was a Washington County within the District of Columbia, but it was dissolved by the District of Columbia Organic Act. Jefferson County, for Thomas Jefferson, is next with 27. The most recent president to have a county named for him was Warren Harding, reflecting the slowing rate of county creation since New Mexico and Arizona as states in 1912. After people, the next most common source of county names are geographic features and locations, with some counties even being named after counties in other states, or for places in countries such as the United Kingdom. The most common geographic county name is Lake. Native American tribes and animals lend their names to some counties. Quite a few counties bear names of French or Spanish origin.

Governance

In most Midwestern and Northeastern states, counties are further subdivided into townships or towns and may contain other independent, self-governing municipalities.

Counties are usually governed by an elected board of supervisors, county commission, county freeholders, county council, or county legislature. In some counties, there is a county mayor or a county executive. The position of mayor is mostly ceremonial in some states, while in others, the mayor is more powerful than the commissioners or supervisors.

In many states, the board in charge of a county holds powers that transcend all three traditional branches of government. It has the legislative power to enact ordinances for the county; it has the executive power to oversee the executive operations of county government; and it has quasi-judicial power with regard to certain limited matters (like hearing appeals from the planning commission if one exists).

As for the day-to-day operations of the county government, they are sometimes overseen by a county manager or chief administrative officer who reports to the board, the mayor, or both.

In some states, the county technically has a plural executive in that several important officials are elected separately from the board of commissioners or supervisors (implying they cannot be fired by the board). This can create tension if such officials then disagree on how to best carry out their respective functions.

Scope of power

The power of county governments varies widely from state to state, as does the relationship between counties and incorporated cities. The government of the county usually resides in a municipality called the county seat. However, some counties may have multiple seats or no seat. In some small counties with no incorporated municipalities, a large settlement may serve as the county seat.

Minimal scope

In New England, counties function at most as judicial court districts and sheriff's departments (presently, in Connecticut only as judicial court districts - and in Rhode Island, they have lost both those functions and all others), and most of the governmental authority below the state level is in the hands of towns and cities. In several of Maine's sparsely populated counties, small towns rely on the county for law enforcement, and in New Hampshire several social programs are administered at the state level. In some New England states, such as in Connecticut, parts of Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, counties are now only geographic designations, and they do not have any governmental powers. All government is either done at the state level or at the municipal level. In Connecticut and parts of Massachusetts, regional councils have been established to partially fill the void left behind by the abolished county governments. The regional councils' authority is much more limited compared with a county government—the regional councils have no taxing authority or authority to issue permits; the aforementioned powers are delegated to the town governments. However, the regional councils do have authority over infrastructure and land use planning, distribution of state and federal funds for infrastructure projects, emergency preparedness, and limited law enforcement duties.

Moderate scope

In the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest, counties typically provide, at a minimum, courts, public utilities, libraries, hospitals, public health services, parks, roads, law enforcement, and jails. There is usually a county registrar, recorder, or clerk (the exact title varies) who collects vital statistics, holds elections (sometimes in coordination with a separate elections office or commission), and prepares or processes certificates of births, deaths, marriages, and dissolutions (divorce decrees). The county recorder normally maintains the official record of all real estate transactions. Other key county officials include the coroner/medical examiner, treasurer, assessor, auditor, controller, and district attorney.

In most states, the county sheriff is the chief law enforcement officer in the county. However, except in major emergencies where clear chains of command are absolutely essential, the county sheriff normally does not directly control the police departments of city governments, but merely cooperates with them (e.g., under mutual aid pacts). Thus, the most common interaction between county and city law enforcement personnel is when city police officers deliver suspects to sheriff's deputies for detention or incarceration in the county jail.

In many states, the county controls all unincorporated lands within its boundaries. In states with a township tier, unincorporated land is controlled by the townships. Residents of unincorporated land who are dissatisfied with county-level or township-level resource allocation decisions can attempt to vote to incorporate as a city, town (in states that do not have townships), or village.

A few counties directly provide public transportation themselves, usually in the form of a simple bus system. However, in most counties, public transportation is provided by one of the following: a special district that is coterminous with the county (but exists separately from the county government), a multi-county regional transit authority, or a state agency.

Broad scope

In western and southern states, more populated counties provide many facilities, such as airports, convention centers, museums, beaches, harbors, zoos, clinics, law libraries, and public housing. They provide services such as child and family services, elder services, mental health services, welfare services, veterans assistance services, animal control, probation supervision, historic preservation, food safety regulation, and environmental health services. They have many additional officials like public defenders, arts commissioners, human rights commissioners, and planning commissioners. Finally, there may also be a county fire department (as distinguished from fire departments operated by individual cities, special districts, or the state government).

Maryland, in particular, vests its counties with broad powers, including educational responsibilities (which are normally handled in all other states by school districts specific to particular cities, towns, or regions).

Number of county equivalents per state

There are on average 62.8 counties per state. The state with the fewest counties is Delaware, with 3 (alone in the United States, these are divided into units called 'hundreds'), and the state with the most is Texas (254).

Southern and Midwestern states generally tend to have more counties than Western or Northeastern states, as many Northeastern states are not large enough in area to warrant a large number of counties, and many Western states were sparsely populated when counties were created. Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island have abolished county governments in whole or in part, though the former county territories may be observed in the three states' state-level administrative districts.

Number of Counties	State	Average County Population Approximately
254	Texas	98,000
159	Georgia	62,000
134	Virginia (95 counties and 39 cities),	59,000
120	Kentucky	36,000
115	Missouri (114 counties and one city)	52,000
105	Kansas	27,000
102	Illinois	126,000
100	North Carolina	94,000
99	Iowa	31,000
95	Tennessee	66,000
93	Nebraska	19,000
92	Indiana	70,000
88	Ohio	131,000
87	Minnesota	52,000
83	Michigan	120,000
82	Mississippi	36,000
77	Oklahoma	48,000
75	Arkansas	39,000
72	Wisconsin	79,000
67	Pennsylvania	188,000
67	Florida	277,000
67	Alabama	70,000
66	South Dakota	12,000
64	Louisiana (parishes)	70,000
64	Colorado	79,000
62	New York	315,000.
58	California	637,000
56	Montana	17,000
55	West Virginia	33,000
53	North Dakota	12,000
46	South Carolina	99,000
44	Idaho	35,000
39	Washington	171,000
36	Oregon	98,000
33	New Mexico	61,000
29	Utah	96,000
24	Maryland (23 counties and one city)	237,000
23	Wyoming	24,000
21	New Jersey	415,000
18	Alaska (boroughs)	34,000
17	Nevada (16 counties and one city)	155,000
16	Maine	82,000
15	Arizona	440,000
14	Vermont	44,000
14	Massachusetts	471,000
10	New Hampshire	132,000
8	Connecticut	440,000
5	Rhode Island	211,000
5	Hawaii	259,000
3	Delaware	295,000

Source:

Statistics

Main article: County statistics of the United States

A highway sign designating the border between Nicholas and Greenbrier counties in West Virginia along a secondary road.

At the 2000 U.S. Census, the median land area of the 3,077 U.S. counties was 622 sq mi (1,611 km²), which is only two-thirds of the median land area of a ceremonial county of England, and only a little more than a quarter of the median land area of a French département. However, this figure does not account for the differences among the United States counties themselves; counties in the western United States have a much larger mean land area than those in the eastern United States. For example, the median land area of counties in Georgia is 343 sq mi (888 km²), whereas in Utah it is 2,427 sq mi (6,286 km²).

The largest county equivalent by (total) area is Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area, Alaska, at 147,843 square miles (382,912 km²), while the largest actual county is San Bernardino County, California, in southern California, which includes the Mojave Desert, at 20,105 square miles (52,071 km²) in area. The second-largest county is Coconino County, Arizona, in the north-central part of the state, which includes the Grand Canyon National Park. The smallest county equivalent is the independent city of Falls Church, Virginia, at 2.2 square miles (5.7 km²) in area, while the smallest actual county is Kalawao County, Hawaii, at 13 square miles (34 km²) in land area.

At the 2000 U.S. Census, only 16.7% of U.S. counties had more than 100,000 inhabitants. This reflects the essentially rural nature of U.S. counties, whose grid was designed in the 19th century in a country still largely rural, and only marginally affected by urbanization. Today, the vast majority of people in the United States are concentrated in a relatively small number of counties. The most populous county equivalent is Los Angeles County, California, with 10,226,506 inhabitants as of 2005, and the least populous county is Loving County, Texas, with 67 inhabitants as of 2005.

The most densely populated county (or county equivalent) is New York County, New York (coextensive with the Borough of Manhattan and consisting of Manhattan Island, a neighborhood originally on the island but now physically attached to The Bronx, and very small adjacent islands), with 66,940 people per square mile (25,846 per km², or 38.691 square meters per person) as of 2000, and the least densely populated county is Lake and Peninsula Borough, Alaska, with 0.0767 people per square mile (0.0296 per km², or 33.768 km² per person) as of 2000. The least densely populated county equivalent is Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area, Alaska, with 0.0449 per square mile (0.0173 per km², or 57.683 km² per person) as of 2000.

County equivalents

The term county equivalents includes three additional types of administrative divisions which are different from the type of county found in most states:

• Alaska census areas: Most of the land area of Alaska is not contained within any of Alaska's 18 boroughs. This vast area, larger than France and Germany combined, is officially referred to by the Alaska state government as the Unorganized Borough, and, outside of other incorporated borough limits, has no independent "county" government, although several incorporated city governments exist within its boundaries; the majority of it is governed and run by the State of Alaska as an extension of state government. The United States Census Bureau, in cooperation with the Alaska state government for census and electoral districting purposes, has divided the Unorganized Borough into 11 census areas for statistical purposes only.
• Independent cities: These are cities that legally belong to no county. As of 2004, there are 42 such cities in the United States, including Baltimore, Maryland; Carson City, Nevada; St. Louis, Missouri; and all 39 cities in Virginia, where any municipality incorporated as a city (in contrast to town) is by law severed from any county that might otherwise have contained it.
• Washington, D.C. has a special status. It is not part of any state; instead, in accordance with Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, the city is under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress. For a long time, the District of Columbia and the City of Washington have been coterminous, though originally they were not. All of the former counties within the District of Columbia have been abolished, and they are of historical interest only.

Cities and counties

In general, cities, towns, and other municipal governments almost always occupy a smaller area than the county which contains them, and they sit only in that county (that is, they are prohibited from annexing territory in more than one county). However, there are exceptions:

1. A city and its containing county may be merged to form a consolidated city-county, which is considered both a city and a county under state law. Examples include Philadelphia; Denver; Broomfield, Colorado; San Francisco; Indianapolis; Jacksonville, Florida; and Nashville, Tennessee. Similarly, some of Alaska's boroughs have merged with their principal cities, creating unified city-boroughs. Such consolidations and mergers have resulted in creating cities that rank among the geographically largest cities in the world, though often with population densities far below that of most urban areas.
2. A city may extend across county boundaries in several states where the state constitution or state law authorizes it.

• In some states, this practice is routine, as expanding cities simply annex land in adjoining counties. For example, Aurora, Illinois, once confined to Kane County, has spread to a total of four counties.
• In the case of New York City, the modern city was actually established as covering five counties in their entirety, and today each of these is coextensive with one of the five boroughs of the city: Manhattan (New York County), The Bronx (Bronx County), Queens (Queens County), Brooklyn (Kings County) and Staten Island (Richmond County).

See also

• List of counties in the United States with a population of less than 1,000 people
• List of the most populous counties in the United States
• List of U.S. counties in alphabetical order
• List of US counties with the smallest populations
• List of U.S. states' most populous counties
• Lists of U.S. county name etymologies
• County seat

Notes

^ A: The Unorganized Borough, Alaska formed by the Borough Act of 1961 is a legal entity, run by the Alaska state government as an extension of State government, it and the independently incorporated Unified, Home Rule, First Class and Second Class boroughs roughly correspond to parishes in Louisiana and to counties in the other 48 states.
^ B: These 11 statistical areas are used solely by the United States Census Bureau to tabulate population and other census statistics within the Unorganized Borough; they have no legal basis in Alaska state or federal law other than for electoral representation and federal financial assistance purposes.

External links

• Geographic Areas Reference Manual by the United States Census Bureau
• National Association of Counties
• U.S. County Formation Maps 1617-Present– Cumulative animated graphics.
• Atlas of Historical County Boundaries