County (United States)

A U.S. County is a local level of government below the state but above a town in a U.S. State or U.S. Territory. The term county is used in 48 of the 50 states. Louisiana uses the term parishes and Alaska uses boroughs. Including those, there are 3141 counties in the US, on average 63 per state. In addition there is the District of Columbia, which is not divided into counties.

The power of the county government varies widely from state to state as does the relationship between counties and incorporated cities. In New England, counties function only as judicial court districts (in Connecticut and Rhode Island, they have lost even those functions) and most local power is in the form of towns.

Many states have counties named after U.S. Presidents such as Washington, Madison, Polk, Jefferson, etc. Counties are also commonly named after famous individuals, local Native American tribes once in the area, cities located within the county, and land features (Cerro Gordo, Iowa, meaning "Fat Hill" in Spanish).

Lists of counties by state:

Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri

Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

External links

• County Government: Management and Services
• Counties in the United States
• Ranking Tables for Counties
• For a state map showing the counties, select in http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/ the state and select "view map"; select a county to obtain data about it.
• For a table of counties of a state, with areas, populations, densities and more (using miles), select the state in [1].