The FIPS county code is a five-digit Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) code (FIPS 6-4) which uniquely identifies counties and county equivalents in the United States, certain U.S. possessions, and certain freely associated states. The first two digits are the FIPS state code and the last three are the county code within the state or possession. On September 2, 2008, FIPS 6-4 was one of ten standards withdrawn by NIST as a Federal Information Processing Standard. FIPS 6-4 was replaced by INCITS 31:2009.
County FIPS codes in the United States are usually (with a few exceptions) in the same sequence as alphabetized county names within the state. They are usually (but not always) odd numbers, so that new or changed county names can be fit in their alphabetical sequence slot.
Famous quotes containing the words county and/or code:
“I know this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men whom I could name,—if ten honest men only,—ay, if one HONEST man, in this State of Massachusetts, ceasing to hold slaves, were actually to withdraw from this copartnership, and be locked up in the county jail therefor, it would be the abolition of slavery in America. For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Motion or change, and identity or rest, are the first and second secrets of nature: Motion and Rest. The whole code of her laws may be written on the thumbnail, or the signet of a ring.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)