County
A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes[1] in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French comté denoting a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count (earl) or a viscount.[2] Literal equivalents in other languages, derived from the equivalent of "count", are now seldom used officially, including comté, contea, contado, comtat, condado, Grafschaft, graafschap, and zhupa in Slavic languages; terms equivalent to 'commune' or 'community' are now often instead used.
When the
In the United States and Canada, founded 600 years later
A county may be further subdivided into districts, hundreds, townships, or other administrative jurisdictions within the county. A county usually, but not always, contains cities, towns, townships, villages, or other municipal corporations, which in most cases are somewhat subordinate or dependent upon county governments. Depending on the nation, municipality, and local geography, municipalities may or may not be subject to direct or indirect county control. The functions of both levels are often consolidated into a city government when the area is densely populated, and are generally not when it is less densely populated.[b]
Outside
Africa
Kenya
Counties are the current second-level political division in Kenya. Each county has an assembly where members of the county assembly (MCAs) sit. This assembly is headed by a governor. Each county is also represented in the Senate of Kenya by a senator. Additionally, a women's representative is elected from each county to the Parliament of Kenya to represent women's interests. Counties replaced provinces as the second-level division after the promulgation of the 2010 Constitution of Kenya.
Liberia
Liberia has 15 counties, each of which elects two senators to the Senate of Liberia.
Asia
China
The English word county is used to translate the Chinese term xiàn (
There are 1,464 so-named "counties" out of 2,862 county-level divisions in the PRC, and the number of counties has remained more or less constant since the
In older context, district was an older English translation of xiàn before the establishment of the
During most of the imperial era, there were no concepts like municipalities in China. All cities existed within counties,
For example, the city of
Nowadays, most counties in mainland China, i.e. with "Xian" in their titles, are administered by
Iran
The ostans (provinces) of Iran are further subdivided into counties called shahrestān (Persian: شهرستان). County consists of a city centre, a few bakhsh (Persian: بخش), and many villages around them. There are usually a few cities (Persian: شهر, shahar) and rural agglomerations (Persian: دهستان, dehestān) in each county. Rural agglomerations are a collection of a number of villages. One of the cities of the county is appointed as the capital of the county.
Each shahrestān has a government office known as farmândâri (فرمانداری), which coordinates different events and government offices. The farmândâr فرماندار, or the head of farmândâri, is the governor of the shahrestān.
Korea
County is the common English translation for the
Europe
Denmark
Denmark was divided into counties (Danish: amter) from 1662 to 2006. On 1 January 2007 the counties were replaced by five Regions. At the same time, the number of municipalities was slashed to 98.
The counties were first introduced in 1662, replacing the 49 fiefs (len) in Denmark–Norway with the same number of counties. This number does not include the subdivisions of the Duchy of Schleswig, which was only under partial Danish control. The number of counties in Denmark (excluding Norway) had dropped to around 20 by 1793. Following the reunification of South Jutland with Denmark in 1920, four counties replaced the Prussian Kreise. Aabenraa and Sønderborg County merged in 1932 and Skanderborg and Aarhus were separated in 1942. From 1942 to 1970, the number stayed at 22.[7] The number was further decreased by the 1970 Danish municipal reform, leaving 14 counties plus two cities unconnected to the county structure; Copenhagen and Frederiksberg.
In 2003, Bornholm County merged with the local five municipalities, forming the Bornholm Regional Municipality. The remaining 13 counties were abolished on 1 January 2007 where they were replaced by five new regions. In the same reform, the number of municipalities was slashed from 270 to 98 and all municipalities now belong to a region.
France
A comté was a territory ruled by a
Germany
Each administrative district consists of an elected council and an executive, and whose duties are comparable to those of a county executive in the United States, supervising local government administration. Historically, counties in the Holy Roman Empire were called Grafschaften. The majority of German districts are "rural districts"[8] (German: Landkreise), of which there are 294 as of 2017[update]. Cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants (and smaller towns in some states) do not usually belong to a district, but take on district responsibilities themselves, similar to the concept of independent cities and there are 107 of them, bringing the total number of districts to 401.[9]
Hungary
The administrative unit of
Counties are subdivided into districts (járás) and municipalities, the two types of which are towns (város) and villages (község), each one having their own elected mayor and council. 23 of the towns have the rights of a county although they do not form independent territorial units equal to counties.
The vármegye was also the historic administrative unit in the Kingdom of Hungary, which included areas of present-day neighbouring countries of Hungary. Its Latin name (comitatus) is the equivalent of the French comté. Actual political and administrative role of counties changed much through history. Originally they were subdivisions of the royal administration, but from the 13th century they became self-governments of the nobles and kept this character until the 19th century when in turn they became modern local governments.
Ireland
The island of Ireland was historically divided into 32 counties, of which 26 later formed the Republic of Ireland and 6 made up Northern Ireland.
These counties are traditionally grouped into
The number and boundaries of administrative counties in the Republic of Ireland were reformed in the 1990s. For example,
In Northern Ireland, the six county councils and the smaller town councils were abolished in 1973 and replaced by a single tier of local government. However, in the north as well as in the south, the traditional 32 counties and 4 provinces remain in common usage for many sporting, cultural and other purposes. County identity is heavily reinforced in the local culture by allegiances to county teams in
Italy
In Italy the word county is not used; the administrative sub-division of a region is called provincia. Italian provinces are mainly named after their principal town and comprise several administrative subdivisions called comuni ('communes'). There are currently 110 provinces in Italy.
In the context of pre-modern Italy, the Italian word contado generally refers to the countryside surrounding, and controlled by, the city state. The contado provided natural resources and agricultural products to sustain the urban population. In contemporary usage, contado can refer to a metropolitan area, and in some cases large rural/suburban regions providing resources to distant cities.[11]
Lithuania
Apskritis (plural apskritys) is the Lithuanian word for county. Since 1994 Lithuania has 10 counties; before 1950 it had 20. The only purpose with the county is an office of a state governor who shall conduct law and order in the county.
Norway
Norway has been divided into 11
Each county has its own
Poland
The territorial administration of Poland since 1999 has been based on three levels of subdivision. The country is divided into voivodeships (provinces); these are further divided into powiats (counties or districts). The term powiat is often translated into English as county (or sometimes district). In historical contexts this may be confusing because the Polish term hrabstwo (a territorial unit administered/owned by a hrabia (count) is also literally translated as "county" and it was subordinated under powiat.
The 380 county-level entities in Poland include 314 "land counties" (powiaty ziemskie) and the 66 "city counties" (miasta na prawach powiatu or powiaty grodzkie)
Romania
The Romanian word for county, comitat, is not currently used for any Romanian administrative divisions. Romania is divided into a total of 41 counties (
Sweden
The Swedish division into counties,
Every county council corresponds to a county with a number of municipalities per county. County councils and municipalities have different roles and separate responsibilities relating to local government. Health care, public transport and certain cultural institutions are administered by county councils while general education, public water utilities, garbage disposal, elderly care and rescue services are administered by the municipalities. Gotland is a special case of being a county council with only one municipality and the functions of county council and municipality are performed by the same organisation.[14]
Ukraine
In Ukraine the county (
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom is divided into a number of
In 1965 and 1974–1975, major reorganisations of local government in England and Wales created several new administrative counties such as
The name "county" was introduced by the Normans, and was derived from a Norman term for an area administered by a Count (lord). These Norman "counties" were simply the Saxon shires, and kept their Saxon names. Several traditional counties, including Essex, Sussex and Kent, predate the unification of England by Alfred the Great, and were originally more or less independent kingdoms (although the most important Saxon Kingdom on the island of Britain, Alfred's own Wessex, no longer survives in any form).
England
In England, in the
Most non-metropolitan counties in England are run by county councils and are divided into non-metropolitan districts, each with its own council. Local authorities in the UK are usually responsible for education, emergency services, planning, transport, social services, and a number of other functions.
Until 1974, the county boundaries of England changed little over time. In the
Northern Ireland
In Northern Ireland, the six county councils, if not their counties, were abolished in 1973 and replaced by 26 local government districts. The traditional six counties remain in common everyday use for many cultural and other purposes.
Scotland and Wales
The thirteen historic counties of Wales were fixed by statute in 1539 (although counties such as Pembrokeshire date from 1138) and most of the shires of Scotland are of at least this age. The Welsh word for county is sir which is derived from the English 'shire'.[17] The word is officially used to signify counties in Wales.[18] In the Gaelic form, Scottish traditional county names are generally distinguished by the designation siorramachd—literally "sheriffdom", e.g. Siorramachd Earra-ghaidheal (Argyllshire). This term corresponds to the jurisdiction of the sheriff in the Scottish legal system.
North America
Canada
The
, have a two-tier system of local government in which counties are upper tier municipalities.Manitoba and Saskatchewan are divided into rural municipalities. The Northwest Territories and Nunavut are divided into regions; however, these regions only serve to streamline the delivery of territorial governmental services, and have no government of their own. Newfoundland and Labrador, and Yukon do not have any second-level administrative subdivision between the provincial/territorial government and their municipalities.
New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island
The counties of
Ontario
The primary administrative
Quebec
Quebec's counties are more properly called "Regional County Municipalities" (municipalités régionales de comté). The province's former counties proper were supplanted in the early 1980s.
Alberta
A county in Alberta used to be a type of designation in a single-tier municipal system; but this was nominally changed to "municipal district" under the Municipal Government Act, when the County Act was repealed in the mid-1990s. However, at the time the new "municipal districts" were also permitted to retain the usage of county in their official names.[19]
As a result, in Alberta, the term county is synonymous with the term municipal district – it is not its own incorporated municipal status that is different from that of a municipal district. As such, Alberta Municipal Affairs provides municipal districts with the opportunity to change to a county in their official names, but some have chosen to hold out with the municipal district title. The vast majority of "municipal districts" in Alberta are named as counties.
British Columbia
British Columbia has counties for the purposes of its justice system but otherwise they hold no governmental function. For the provision of all other governmental services, the province is divided into regional districts that form the upper tier, which are further subdivided into local municipalities that are partly autonomous, and unincorporated electoral areas that are governed directly by the regional districts.
Manitoba
The province of Manitoba was divided into counties; however, these counties were abolished in 1890.
Jamaica
.United States
Counties in
Forty-eight of the 50 U.S. states use the term "county", while Alaska and Louisiana use the terms "borough" and "parish", respectively, for analogous jurisdictions. A consolidated city-county such as Philadelphia and San Francisco is formed when a city and county merge into one unified jurisdiction. Conversely, an independent city like Baltimore, St. Louis, and all cities in Virginia legally belongs to no county, i.e. no county even nominally exists in those places compared to a consolidated city-county where a county does legally exist in some form. The District of Columbia, outside the jurisdiction of any state, is viewed by the U.S. Census Bureau as a single county equivalent.[20]
The specific governmental powers of counties vary widely between the states. They are generally the intermediate tier of state government, between the statewide tier and the immediately local government tier (typically a city, town/borough or village/township). Some of the governmental functions that a county may offer include judiciary, county prisons, land registration, enforcement of building codes, and federally mandated services programs. Depending on the individual state, counties or their equivalents may be administratively subdivided into townships, boroughs or boros, or towns (in the New England states, New York and Wisconsin). For independent cities and consolidated city-counties, those places report directly to the state.
New York City is a special case where the city is made up of five boroughs, each of which is territorially coterminous with a county of New York State. In the context of city government, the boroughs are subdivisions of the city but are still called "county" where state function is involved, e.g., "New York County Courthouse".
County governments in Rhode Island and Connecticut have been completely abolished but the entities remain for administrative and statistical purposes. Alaska's 323,440-square-mile (837,700 km2) Unorganized Borough also has no county equivalent government, but the U.S. Census Bureau further divides it into statistical county equivalent subdivisions called census areas.[20]
The areas of each county also vary widely between the states. For example, the territorially medium-sized state of Pennsylvania has 67 counties delineated in geographically convenient ways.[21] By way of contrast, Massachusetts, with far less territory, has massively sized counties in comparison even to Pennsylvania's largest,[d] yet each organizes their judicial and incarceration officials similarly.
Most counties have a
Oceania
Australia
In the eastern states of Australia, counties are used in the administration of land titles. They do not generally correspond to a level of government, but are used in the identification of parcels of land.
The local communities in Australia that share the same
New Zealand
After New Zealand abolished its provinces in 1876, a system of counties similar to other countries' systems was instituted, lasting until 1989. They had chairmen, not mayors as boroughs and cities had; many legislative provisions (such as burial and land subdivision control) were different for the counties.
During the second half of the 20th century, many counties received overflow population from nearby cities. The result was often a merger of the two into a district (e.g. Rotorua) or a change of name to either district (e.g. Waimairi) or city (e.g. Manukau City).
The Local Government Act 1974 began the process of bringing urban, mixed, and rural councils into the same legislative framework. Substantial reorganisations under that Act resulted in the 1989 shake-up, which covered the country in (non-overlapping) cities and districts and abolished all the counties except for the Chatham Islands County, which survived under that name for a further 6 years but then became a "Territory" under the "Chatham Islands Council".
South America
Argentina
Provinces in Argentina are divided into departments (Spanish: departamentos), except in the Buenos Aires Province, where they are called partidos. The Autonomous City of Buenos Aires is divided into communes (comunas).
Brazil
States in Brazil were divided into microregions (Portuguese: microrregiões) before they were replaced by "immediate geographic regions" in 2017.
Notes
- ^ 1666 in the consolidation of Canada after the French and Indian War from the 1066 Norman Conquest... 600 yrs
- ^ The larger the population center, and the denser the population, the more likely it is to have assumed and subsumed county level functions; normally under a special bill passed by the cognizant legislative body.
- ^ National governments that are Federations, such as Germany have subdivisions similar to the English Counties in size. France has regions and departements which similarly provide governmental services. Which services are mapped to which governmental offices, level or officials is the province of the national constitution and legislative body.
- ^ e.g. Westmoreland, Washington in western Pennsylvania.
References
- ^ L. Brookes (ed.) Chambers Dictionary. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005.
- ^ C. W. Onions (Ed.) The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. Oxford University Press, 1966.
- ^ Vision of Britain [1] – Type details for ancient county. Retrieved 31 March 2012
- ^ "county". Etymology Online.
- ^ "County Government". Citizen's Guide to Pennsylvania Local Government: 8. 2010. Retrieved 9 August 2016.
The eleven elected county officers are enumerated in the Pennsylvania Constitution, but their powers and duties are prescribed by statutes located throughout the county codes and general state laws. Consolidation of certain offices in smaller counties involves the offices of prothonotary, clerk of courts, register of wills and recorder of deeds.
- ^ There were exceptions in the Jīn and Yuan dynasties, when cities were separated from counties and independently administered by institutions like 録事司 (lù shi sī) and 司候司 (sī hòu sī).
- ^ "Amternes administration 1660–1970 (in Danish)". Dansk Center for Byhistorie. Archived from the original on 4 January 2010. Retrieved 1 January 2007.
- ^ "Country Compendium, A companion to the English Style Guide" (PDF). European Commission Directorate-General for Translation (EC DGT). February 2017. pp. 50–51. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022.
- Statistisches BundesamtDeutschland. July 2017. Retrieved 9 August 2017.
- ^ "Areas". Ordnance Survey Ireland. Archived from the original on 3 July 2007. Retrieved 1 July 2007.
- ISBN 9781351931960.
- ^ ideo.pl, ideo- (27 April 2019). "Gminy wiejskie chcą lepszej ochrony swych granic". Prawo.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 15 February 2021.
- ^ "Population. Size and structure and vital statistics in Poland by territorial division in 2017. As of December, 31" (PDF) (in Polish). Główny Urząd Statystyczny (Central Statistical Office). Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022. Retrieved 18 August 2021.
- ^ Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions, Municipalities, county councils and regions Archived 22 November 2016 at the Wayback Machine; official translation of the Local Government Act Archived 20 February 2005 at the Wayback Machine (Kommunallagen);About Stockholm County Council Archived 21 August 2016 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b c d "County". Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Retrieved 17 September 2022.
- ^ "Okruha". Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Retrieved 17 September 2022.
- ^ "Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru".
- ^ "Carmarthenshire County Council Website : Gwefan Cyngor Sir Gaerfyrddin". Carmarthenshire.gov.wales. Retrieved 16 March 2022.
- ^ Province of Alberta. "Transitional Provisions, Consequential Amendments, Repeal and Commencement (Municipal Government Act)" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 January 2012. Retrieved 17 November 2010.
- ^ a b c "County and equivalent entity". factfinder.census.gov. Archived from the original on 22 March 2020. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
- ^ "County Government". Citizen's Guide to Pennsylvania Local Government: 8 of 56. 2010. Retrieved 9 August 2016.
External links
- Media related to Counties at Wikimedia Commons