I was involved in an entertaining little conversation this morning about counties while attempting to eat breakfast. The county sheriff and I were discussing an issue related to volunteer fire departments and their support via the township boards within the county structure between bites of biscuits and gravy. We were sitting at a table in a convenience store/gas station at the time. The owner of the place (and nearly 50 others in three states) came in, sat down at the next table to eat his breakfast. He must have been listening in because suddenly he asks, "Why in the world are there 105 counties in Kansas?" He has businesses in about 15 or so of them and must conform to whatever the practices are in each one, so we understood his question. The simple answer was to reflect on the mode of transportation during the decades when most of the counties were being created. Being able to hop in your wagon/buggy and have the horses get you to the county seat and back in the daylight hours of the same day was deemed to be essential.
How many counties, parishes, boroughs are there in your state? Do you even have that number memorized from your days in grade school? The following link will help you out with that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_(United_States)
Scroll down about 3/4 of the way to find details on each state and the number, size and population of its counties. It turns out that only Texas, Missouri, Kentucky and Georgia have more counties than Kansas. Delaware only has three. Texas has 254. But, the smallest average size is 207 square miles for the five counties of Rhode Island (not counting the one 61 square mile "county" in Washington, D. C.) and the largest average size outside of Alaska is 7573 square miles for the 15 counties in Arizona. Population per county varies between nearly 10 million in Los Angeles County, CA and 71 in Loving County, TX. The smallest county is Kalawao in Hawaii at just under 12 square miles and the largest, again outside of Alaska, is San Bernardino in California with over 20,000 square miles.
Why the "scare quotes" around "county" for Washington D.C.?
There were five political entities within the original ten mile square as organized by The District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801: the federal city (the area within the L'Enfant plan), the existing cities of Alexandria and Georgetown, and the Counties of Alexandra and Washington.
The differences between the city and county still matter for survey issues; for example some rules of construction differ if the property was originally in the city or county (especially how alleys are established within the block) and there are no road "rights of way" in the city, the land in the original platted roadways is owned in fee by the federal government.
120 in Ky. Could name them all in the 7th grade. I live in Lyon Co, which is not quite the smallest, but a large portion of it is in the Land Between the Lakes National Forest, and Barkley and Ky Lakes, and the state penitentiary, so it probably has the smallest amount of private property.
New Mexico has 33. Originally had 9. Scariest thing now is we have one county with a population of 740 and the size is 2,216 sq miles. And it isn't the richest county by a long shot. Can't name them all but have a cool picture my SIL gave me.
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Oh... the county is Harding!
Have been in Union and Colfax only in the past 50 years. They are sufficiently barren for my tastes. Can't imagine what one does for entertainment in Harding County.
Georgia has 159 counties. This is in my opinion is one reason why our schools are ranked near the bottom. Some of our counties are very poor. I was doing research in one County and circled the Court House three times before realizing that this really is the Court House. It was a pleasant Spring day, so the breeze coming through the screen door was nice. The reasons for the number is political. Little Joe on the East side of the river did not want to be subject to Billy Bob and his kin on the West side of the river. Consolidation would help in many ways.
i always get a kick out of hearing county this, our county that. Terms like county seat, county sheriff.
Connecticut has eight counties. and exist only on paper, they have no power over the 168+- towns and cities in the state.
"Being able to hop in your wagon/buggy and have the horses get you to the county seat and back in the daylight hours of the same day was deemed to be essential."
That was the reason that the first State capital in Arizona was located in Precott, which is geographically centrally located. After a few years they realized that since there were no year-round north-south routes in the state it was moved to the population center - Phoenix.
In Ohio as the population of the state increased counties were added. In 1796 there were basically 4 counties - Hamilton, Wayne (into Indiana & most of Michigan), Washington and Knox (west of the Great Miami River into Indiana). As the population in each area grew, I believe they applied to the US congress, before statehood, and they would allow that area to become it's one county with it's own government. After statehood fell to the state gov. to fix the lines. They continued to move, create and adjust until 1888. There's more to the story, I may have gotten some things wrong but it's been along time since I had to research this. But to make a short story long, that's why we have so many counties. Don't know if Kansas was the same or not.
64 parishes here. Originally only 9 or so ten expanded over time because of political and geographical reasons. Al ot of French and Creole names. A lot of parishes named after Catholic saints or dogma and Native American names . The Mississippi river was a factor in parishes dividing due to ferry service etc.
Our parish was named for Tammany when settlers were looking for a more American sounding name contrary to the french and Catholic names.
There are numerous saint named parishes here,(Mary, John the Baptist, Charles, Helena, Landry, James, Bernard). I guess placing the "Saint' was a note of respect to Tammnend or a poke of the Catholic population to the south and west.
Parish governments has the power here. New Orleans (Oreans Parish) has a home rule charter.
95 in Tennesseee. A quick count shows that I've surveyed in at least 60% of them.
Joe the Surveyor, post: 360531, member: 118 wrote: i always get a kick out of hearing county this, our county that. Terms like county seat, county sheriff.
Connecticut has eight counties. and exist only on paper, they have no power over the 168+- towns and cities in the state.
So you have no County government officials? And no County taxes? I believe that here they were created to add another layer of taxation...
Counties are where our documents are recorded - not at a City or State level. The DOT and State Land Department don't record anything anywhere.
New Jersey has 21 Counties containing 565 Municipalities.
The county I live in was formed in 1683.
Dan Dunn, post: 360567, member: 911 wrote: New Jersey has 21 Counties containing 565 Municipalities.
The county I live in was formed in 1683.
The county I grew up in has 3 municipalities. So does the county to the east. The one to the north has 2.
254 in Texas where I was born and currently live.
I went to school in NM, we had to memorize the counties for 8th grader social studies.
Greg Shoults RPLS, post: 360586, member: 531 wrote: 254 in Texas where I was born and currently live.
I went to school in NM, we had to memorize the counties for 8th grader social studies.
You memorized the 254 county names?! Holy Cow!
We have 10 in New Hampshire. Pretty much all the counties do is run the courthouse, registry of deeds, conservation district, and nursing homes. The towns and state take care of everything else.
Jim in AZ, post: 360563, member: 249 wrote: So you have no County government officials? And no County taxes? I believe that here they were created to add another layer of taxation...
Counties are where our documents are recorded - not at a City or State level. The DOT and State Land Department don't record anything anywhere.
No county officials, no county taxes. Although CT is one of the highest taxed states in the US.
No Counties, No Towns, No Cities, 6 ? populated Islands.
One Government. Maybe that's our problem.
87 in Minnesota. Garrison Keillor used to recite them in alphabetical order now and then on his radio show. I never had any ambition to do that.
