County (United States)

A county, in the United States, is a political subdivision and form of government that is right below the state. 48 out of the 50 states in the United States use counties. Louisiana calls its counties parishes while Alaska got rid of counties and only uses boroughs.^[1] Both of these are equal to the county. Connecticut has counties, but these no longer exist as statistical entities, having been replaced in 2022 by what the state calls "councils of governments".^[2] The list that the U.S. Census Bureau keeps that lists all of the counties in the United States says that there are 3,481 counties or other kinds of divisions that are equal to the county in the United States.^[source?][3]

Map of the United States, showing the states, divided into counties.

The midwestern and northeastern states in the United States divide the county further into townships or towns, some of which have municipalities. The place where the county government and courts are is called the county seat (Alaska: "borough seat", Louisiana: "parish seat", Vermont: sometimes "shire town").

On average, a county in the United States has a population of around 100,000 people. The county that has the most people living in it is Los Angeles County, California, where over 10 million people live. The county that has the fewest people living in it is Loving County, Texas, where as of the 2020 United States Census, 64 people live.

The average number of counties in each state is 62. Delaware has the fewest with only 3. Texas has the most counties with 254.^[4]

These pages list all of the counties in each state:

254 – Texas 159 – Georgia 120 – Kentucky 115[a] – Missouri 105 – Kansas 102 – Illinois 100 – North Carolina 99 – Iowa 95 – Tennessee 95[b] – Virginia [5]

93 – Nebraska 92 – Indiana 88 – Ohio 87 – Minnesota 83 – Michigan 82 – Mississippi 77 – Oklahoma 75 – Arkansas 72 – Wisconsin 67 – Pennsylvania

67 – Florida [6] 67 – Alabama 66 – South Dakota 64[c] – Louisiana 64 – Colorado 62 – New York 58 – California 56 – Montana 55 – West Virginia 53 – North Dakota

46 – South Carolina 44 – Idaho 39 – Washington 36 – Oregon 33 – New Mexico 30[d] – Alaska 29 – Utah 24[e] – Maryland 23 – Wyoming 21 – New Jersey

17[f] – Nevada 16 – Maine 15 – Arizona 14 – Vermont 14 – Massachusetts 10 – New Hampshire 8[g] – Connecticut (see also: Councils of governments in Connecticut on the English Wikipedia) 5 – Rhode Island 5 – Hawaii 3 – Delaware

^[1]

Notes

1. Missouri has 116 county-equivalent units, with the city of St. Louis not part of any of its counties.
2. In addition to its 95 counties, Virginia has 38 independent cities that are not part of any county. In all, Virginia has 133 county-equivalent units.
3. Louisiana is divided into parishes instead of counties.^[7] Louisiana parishes are no different from counties in most other states.
4. Instead of counties, Alaska is divided into 19 organized boroughs plus the Unorganized Borough, which in turn is divided into 11 census areas. In all, Alaska has 30 county-equivalents.
5. Maryland has 25 county-equivalent units, with the city of Baltimore not part of any of its counties.
6. Nevada has 18 county-equivalent units, with the state capital of Carson City not part of any of its counties.
7. Connecticut's counties now exist only as notional units. The state abolished county government in 1960. In order to address problems caused by lack of county government, the state created 15 regional councils, known in Connecticut as "councils of governments" (COGs), in the 1980s. Since 2014, the original 15 COGs have been rearranged into nine. In 2022, the COGs fully replaced the legacy counties as federal statistical units.