United States
As with the shires of Anglo-Saxon England, counties in U.S. states are administrative divisions of the state in which their boundaries are drawn. Where they exist, they are the intermediate tier of unitary state government, between the statewide tier and the immediately local government tier (typically a city, town or village). Counties are used in 48 of the 50 unitary states; the other two states (Connecticut and Rhode Island) have abolished their counties as functional entities, and Massachusetts is in the process of doing so. Of these remaining 48 states, 46 use the term "county" while Alaska and Louisiana use the terms "borough" and "parish", respectively, for analogous jurisdictions.
Depending on the individual state, counties or their equivalents may be administratively subdivided into townships, or towns in the New England states, New York, and Wisconsin. In these cases, the township is generally subordinate to the county, which is generally subordinate to the state. Michigan, since 1947, has distinguished between "townships" (not self-governing) and "charter townships" (self-governing). In most states, municipal corporations (i.e. cities, villages or towns) file their reports to the state through the county. In Virginia, however, all cities are independent and report directly to the commonwealth government; but notwithstanding they are not part of the county, they might operate as a county seat (e.g. the Independent City of Fairfax is the seat of Fairfax County, though it is not legally within Fairfax County). California has abolished its townships, though may general law cities continue to use the word "Town" as part of their name (e.g. "Town of Atherton" when it is, legally, the City of Atherton).
Louisiana has entities equivalent to counties called parishes. Alaska is divided into boroughs, which typically provide fewer local services than do most U.S. counties, as the state government furnishes many services directly. Some of Alaska's boroughs have merged geographical boundaries and administrative functions with their principal (and sometimes only) cities; these are known as unified city-boroughs and result in some of Alaska's cities ranking among the geographically largest "cities" in the world. Nevertheless, Alaska considers such entities to be boroughs, not cities. Alaska is also unique in that more than half the geographic area of the state is in the "Unorganized Borough", a legal entity in which the state also functions as the local government.
New York has a unique system where 57 of its 62 counties are independently-operated administrative divisions of the state, with normal county executive powers; while the remaining five are administrative divisions of the City of Greater New York. These five are each called borough in context of City government – Manhattan, The Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island (formerly Richmond); but are still called "county" where state function is involved, e.g., "New York County Courthouse", not "Manhattan". The county names correlate to the borough names as follows: New York County = Manhattan, Bronx County = The Bronx, Queens County = Queens, Kings County = Brooklyn, and Richmond County = Staten Island.
In two states and parts of a third, county government as such does not exist, and county refers to geographic regions or districts. In Connecticut, Rhode Island and parts of Massachusetts counties exist only to designate boundaries for such state-level functions as park districts (Connecticut) or judicial offices (Connecticut and Massachusetts). In states where county government is nonexistent or weak (e.g., New Hampshire, Vermont), town government may provide some or all of the local government services.
Most counties have a county seat, usually a city, where its administrative functions are centered. Exceptions include the nation's smallest county, Arlington County, Virginia, which contains no municipalities. In several instances throughout the nation, a municipality has merged with a county into one jurisdiction so the county seat is coextensive with the county. This is the case in the City and County of San Francisco, CA, and in the City and County of Philadelphia, PA. A similar arrangement is found in the "Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County" where the metropolis of Nashville has merged into the county of Davidson (but, other than Nashville, a few municipalities - such as Belle Meade - still exist with some administrative functions). Miami-Dade in south Florida is a unique example of the merger of some functionality resulting in a two tier arrangement of governmental authority and administrative responsibility. New York City is famously coextensive with five counties or boroughs: the Bronx (which is Bronx County), Brooklyn (Kings County), Manhattan (New York County), Queens (Queens County), and Staten Island (Richmond County). Some New England states use the term shire town to mean "county seat".
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Famous quotes related to united states:
“You may consider me presumptuous, gentlemen, but I claim to be a citizen of the United States, with all the qualifications of a voter. I can read the Constitution, I am possessed of two hundred and fifty dollars, and the last time I looked in the old family Bible I found I was over twenty-one years of age.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1816–1902)
“In the United States there’s a Puritan ethic and a mythology of success. He who is successful is good. In Latin countries, in Catholic countries, a successful person is a sinner.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada are the horns, the head, the neck, the shins, and the hoof of the ox, and the United States are the ribs, the sirloin, the kidneys, and the rest of the body.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)
“... when we shall have our amendment to the Constitution of the United States, everyone will think it was always so, just exactly as many young people believe that all the privileges, all the freedom, all the enjoyments which woman now possesses were always hers. They have no idea of how every single inch of ground that she stands upon to-day has been gained by the hard work of some little handful of women of the past.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“It was evident that, both on account of the feudal system and the aristocratic government, a private man was not worth so much in Canada as in the United States; and, if your wealth in any measure consists in manliness, in originality and independence, you had better stay here. How could a peaceable, freethinking man live neighbor to the Forty-ninth Regiment? A New-Englander would naturally be a bad citizen, probably a rebel, there,—certainly if he were already a rebel at home.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)