Recently I was trying to tell what a french “department” was, when I realized that I couldn’t give an apt comparison because I had no clue about the size of county.
I assume it varies widely from county to county, but could you give me some idea, even a vague one, about the size of your “average” county… By the way, when a major city is included in the county, is the county usually larger, or does it have the same limits than the city?
By the way, this question is for both the UK and the US…
Oh…and by the way, is there someone at the head of the county? An elected official, or council, or somesuch?
In the US, counties are as big as the state they are in draws them up to be.
The person or persons in charge of a particular US county varies widely by state.
Counties in California are governed by a Board of Supervisors. Most counties in California are large, and and all but one contain many cities, but they range in size from 49 square miles (the City and County of San Francisco) to 20,000 square miles (San Bernardino County).
This is atrue for most of the wetern states. The eastern states, especially the smallest ones, tend to have smaller counties of only a few hundred square miles, but most still have several cities and towns. Indeed, some of the major cities fill the counties they are in.
The only instance of the latter situtaion that I know of is Jacksonville, FL. In general, it is not the case that a single city takes up a whole county.
There generally is some kind of county leadership, a council, maybe the sheriff, something like that. Depends on the population of the county.
As for the size of the counties, it varies widely. At the large end is probably Arizona, which has only 13 (I think) counties, all of which are larger than some of the smaller states. Some of these are 50, 60 or more miles in each direction.
I’m not sure if Alaska has counties, they’re not shown on my Rand McNally road atlas.
As for small counties, many states have counties that are on the order of 10 miles by 10 miles or even smaller. Texas has 254 counties, though it is also the 2nd largest state. Some of these have just a few hundred people.
So it varies pretty widely. I have no idea what real, worthwhile function counties serve, however. The only time I’ve dealt with a county is when it comes to traffic court.
Alaska and Louisiana are the only two states which do not have a county system. I imagine in Alaska it’s because the population density is too low to justify more organization. In Louisiana it’s because they have the equivalent system of parishes.
According to my ol’ Encarta CD, Hawaii is divided into four counties with elected leadership and another county run by the department of health; however, none of the counties has any incorporated cities and thus no city governments.
The variation in the US is probably more than you are expecting. Vermont, for instance, is a very small state, and chooses to divide itself into 14 counties. The much larger state of Arizona has 15.
Arlington County, VA claims to be the smallest US county. Arlington County is a 26 square mile chunk of the Washington, DC metro area. Coconino County, AZ, is over 18000 square miles.
Oh, and Louisiana has Parishes, which are essentially counties and are treated that way in atlases. Alaska is the only state that doesn’t have some county-like division listed in most atlases.
Oh, you said that already. Duh! Sorry about that.
Facts about counties:
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The largest county in the United States is San Bernardino County in California, with an area of 20,053 square miles. It consists mostly of Mojave Desert. The smallest county is New York County, a.k.a. Manhattan Island, with an area of 23 square miles. A “typical” county would be 20 to 30 miles square for an area of 400 to 900 square miles.
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The most populous county is Los Angeles County, with a population of 9.5 million. The least populous is Loving County, Texas with a population of 67.
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The city of New York is a unique case, as it is subdivided into 5 counties corresponding to the 5 boroughs. This is the only case where a county is smaller than a city, although there are other cases where a city fills up an entire county or slops over a border and occupies parts of two different counties.
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Every state except Alaska has counties, although Louisiana calls them “parishes”. These 49 states are divided into a little over 3,000 counties. St. Louis, Baltimore, Carson City, and 40 cities in Virginia are “independent cities”, not located in any county.
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Every county, as far as I know, has an elected government. Like most governments in America, these usually consist of a legislature (usually called the “County Board”) and a chief executive of some sort (called either the “County Board Chairman” or “County Board President” or “County Commissioner” or some such). The County Board meets in a building located in the “county seat”. or capital.
Don’t forget that MA no longer has counties, as such. There’s no government behind them, and all “county” jails are run by the state. The borders still exist, but as regions, and not actual political entities. The state controls all that, now.
When the land survey of Iowa was done the idea was to have counties that were 24 miles square. The land was divided into sections of one mile square. These sections were grouped into townships 6 sections (miles) on a side or 36 sections in all. And each country was to be 4 townships on a side making the county 24 miles square.
If you check the map of Iowa, for example you will notice a lot of square counties, 24 miles on a side. On the east and west, of course this idea couldn’t be carried through because the Mississippi and Missouri rivers didn’t cooperate.
As the other posters have said, each state decides what constitutes a country and its size and powers.
Alaska doesn’t have counties, it has boroughs. However, much of the state isn’t organized into boroughs, only the populated areas. 99% of the land in Alaska is public land…State land, state parks, national parks, national forests, wildlife refuges, native corporation land, etc.
But we were talking about counties. The level of county governance varies. Some counties have politically powerful county executives comparable to mayors. Other counties are little more than lines on a map. Most counties have law enforcement powers…sherriffs and sherriff’s deputies. They might also be concerned with roads, public transportation, or utilities in unincorporated parts of the county (ie, the parts that aren’t within any city limits).
A quibble on this one. Most counties that I have lived in had only the elected Board of Commissioners. They would often hire a manager or administrator, but he was not elected. Around 25 years ago, Michigan modified their State Constitution to provide for an elected chief executive for those counties that a) were sufficiently populous and b) voted to establish one. (Wayne County, where Detroit is located, and Oakland County just north of Wayne, have elected County Executives, but when I moved out of the state, those were the only two I knew and I believe that the similarly populated Macomb County that completes the Metro Detroit area does not have one.) I am sure that some other states must have similar provisions, but Ohio does not seem to be such a state as I have never heard of an Ohio County Executive.
Quoth David Simmons:
And while we’re at it on the topic of city vs. county boundaries -
Here in Portland, OR, the city actually straddles parts of three counties, Washington, Multnomah and Clackamas. I know I’ve heard of this happening in other localities, but I can’t find any good links right at the moment.
Some cities are not part of any counties. Two notable examples: the city of St. Louis, Missouri, which has been independent of St. Louis County since 1876; and the city of Baltimore, Maryland.
New York has 62 counties, five of which make of the borougs of New York City, as jklann mentioned. Each county in New York (except the five of NYC) are run by en elected government headed by a County Executive. Most counties have a largish town or city that acts as the county seat. In Westchester County, it’s White Plains, in Monroe County, it’s Rochester.
The counties consist of incorporated and unincorporated cities, towns and villages which have various powers of taxation and jurisdiction as defined by the New York Constitution (NYC, again, being an exception, having its own special rules.) In unincorporated areas, the county government is responsible for providing essential services such as police and fire protection, maintaining roads, and so on.
You can view county maps of any state at the US Census website. Here’s some interesting ones:
New York (62 counties)
Indiana (92 counties)
New Hampshire (10 counties)
Iowa (99 very boring counties)
Texas (a whopping 254 counties).
I’d just like to amplify my fellow New Yorker friedo’s explanation of the county government system within the City of New York.
The City of New York is divided up administratively into five borough, each of which is also a county of the State of New York. The names of the boroughs and corresponding counties are:
Manhattan – New York County
Brooklyn – Kings County
Queens – Queens County
Bronx – Bronx County
Staten Island – Richmond County
New York City is governed by a Mayor and City Council elected by all of the boroughs, and almost all government services are under the city government.
However, there are a few government functions that are on the borough/county level. First of all, each borough has an elected official known as the Borough President. Although the BP prevously has some significant political power, under semi-recent City Charter changes the BP is a largerly powerless position. Under state law, the BP is considered the County Executive, though with most functions that would be otherwise handled on the county level handled by the City, that is a fairly meaningless position as well.
The one area in which City as five counties is significant is in judicial functions. Each County elects its own District Attorney (prosecutor) and judges of the Supreme Court (which in New York is the basic general trial court handling felonies and major civil cases). The many lower level courts are technically city-wide (Civil Court, smaller civil matters and landlord/tenant, Criminal Court, misdemeanors and arraingments, Family Court, child custody, etc.), but are administratively divided into counties.