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".
Read more about this topic: County
Famous quotes related to united states:
“Fortunately, the time has long passed when people liked to regard the United States as some kind of melting pot, taking men and women from every part of the world and converting them into standardized, homogenized Americans. We are, I think, much more mature and wise today. Just as we welcome a world of diversity, so we glory in an America of diversity—an America all the richer for the many different and distinctive strands of which it is woven.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
“The real charm of the United States is that it is the only comic country ever heard of.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“What makes the United States government, on the whole, more tolerable—I mean for us lucky white men—is the fact that there is so much less of government with us.... But in Canada you are reminded of the government every day. It parades itself before you. It is not content to be the servant, but will be the master; and every day it goes out to the Plains of Abraham or to the Champs de Mars and exhibits itself and toots.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I feel most at home in the United States, not because it is intrinsically a more interesting country, but because no one really belongs there any more than I do. We are all there together in its wholly excellent vacuum.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)
“I am colored but I offer nothing in the way of extenuating circumstances except the fact that I am the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on the mother’s side was not an Indian chief.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)