# County government in Alaska **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 12, 2000, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/county-government-in-alaska/12748 "2000-01-12T21:12:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2000, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/county-government-in-alaska/12748/1 "2000-01-12T21:12:00Z")
The state doesn’t have counties in the sense that most other states do–that is, other than CT and RI, which have passed laws abolishing county government. But what about Alaska? How is local government organized there to accommodate things such as fire departments, county sheriffs, voting registrars, and public libraries? ---
**Author:** ![Ursa\_Major](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/a88e57/32.png) [@Ursa\_Major](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ursa_Major)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2000, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/county-government-in-alaska/12748/2 "2000-01-12T21:24:00Z")
My Rand McNally doesn’t show any county lines in Alaska (unlike the rest of the states, including CT and RI). My folks live in Jefferson County, WA on the Olympic Penn. The county is completely cut in half by the Olympic Mts. You can’t drive from the Puget Sound side of the county to the Pacific Ocean side of the county without driving through two other counties. Ain’t no law that county lines have to be logical, or easy to administer. Alaska, apparently, has decided to forgo such nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![David\_God\_of\_Frogs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David\_God\_of\_Frogs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_God_of_Frogs)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2000, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/county-government-in-alaska/12748/3 "2000-01-12T22:41:00Z")
The Alaskans are pretty messed up in general. 99% of the land is owned by the government, so most of the state is state parks and stuff that dont really need counties. The cities are really huge though. Juneau has the most square miles of any city, I can’t remember whether in the US or in the world. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2000, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/county-government-in-alaska/12748/4 "2000-01-12T23:08:00Z")
They have four or five “judicial districts” into which the state is split. Each of course supports a district court, and all the related paraphenalia (DA’s office, etc.). As I understand it, the other details of government outside cities are in offices corresponding to the districts. ---
**Author:** ![JBENZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b77776/32.png) [@JBENZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JBENZ)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2000, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/county-government-in-alaska/12748/5 "2000-01-13T09:30:00Z")
Connecticut has counties. We abolished county governments but the divisions still exist for many purposes like the court system and real estate descriptions. IIRC from my days in Anchorage, Alaska has boroughs around the municipalities rather than traditional counties. * * * JB Lex Non Favet Delicatorum Votis ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2000, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/county-government-in-alaska/12748/6 "2000-01-14T22:43:00Z")
JBENZ, I understand you. My modern Hammond atlas does show counties in CT, but not county seats. (I had an Odyssey world atlas which, for the CT map, had a caption stating that the state government abolished county government 5/1/60, but showed the counties since their names are still used.) But the 2000 _World Almanac,_ in its entries for state-by-state Presidential election results, does not show county vote totals for the New England states; they are “not available” according to the Almanac. The only other such state, to my knowledge, is South Dakota, with two counties on Indian reservations that do not have organized local government.