County United States: Encyclopedia II - County United States - Terminology

County United States - Terminology

The term county equivalents includes in addition three types of units outside that definition:

1. Alaska census areas: Most of the land area of Alaska is not contained within any of Alaska's 16 boroughs. This vast area, larger than France and Germany combined, is referred to by the Alaska state government as the unorganized borough and, outside municipal limits, has no local government. The United States Census Bureau has divided the unorganized borough into 11 census areas for statistical purposes.
2. Independent cities: These are cities that legally belong to no county in a state. As of 2004, there are 42 such cities in the United States:
   • Baltimore, Maryland
   • Carson City, Nevada
   • St. Louis, Missouri
   • All 39 cities in Virginia, where any municipality incorporated as a city (in contrast to town) is by law severed from any county that might otherwise have contained it.
3. The District of Columbia, a federal district under the absolute jurisdiction of the US Congress, which has for the last several decades allowed the District a limited home rule.

Including these jurisdictions, the United States has 3,141 counties and county equivalents.

County United States - City-county exceptions

As noted, the territory of most counties includes that of municipalities, within and smaller than the respective counties. However, there are three kinds of exceptions to this arrangement:

1. By a series of annexations or other mergers, a city government may come to have exactly the same territory as the county that contains it, even though they remain separate governments. This is nearly the case in Jacksonville, Florida, which has incorporated all of Duval County except for four smaller suburban cities.
2. Several cities and counties around the country have consolidated city-county governments and are considered both a city and a county under state law. Denver, Colorado and San Francisco, California have been coextensive with their respective counties since the counties were created. On the other hand, Indianapolis, Indiana; Louisville, Kentucky; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Nashville, Tennessee unified with their respective counties after the two entities existed separately. There is also the "City and County of Honolulu", but this is unlike the others in that Hawaii has no incorporated cities and thus the "city" part of "city and county" is in this case a misnomer. Honolulu County contains the entire island of Oahu, which includes many dozens of communities and rural areas in addition to the urban area designated as the Honolulu CDP. Prior to its abolition, the government of Suffolk County, Massachusetts was largely administered by the Boston city council. In Nantucket County, Massachusetts, the Town of Nantucket board of selectmen act as county commissioners. [1]
3. The area now forming the five boroughs of New York City consisted, into the late 19th century, of three typical counties and parts of two others, each containing at least one city or town. These are still counties in name and in state law; nevertheless, since 1898 they have been entirely contained within the boundaries of the city, and following the creation of Bronx County in 1914, each borough now corresponds exactly to one county.
4. In several states (including Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin), a city may annex land within an adjacent county. That land is then subject to city government, but the respective counties continue to provide county-specific services and residents vote for county officials in the respective counties. Major cities that lie in multiple counties include: Houston, Texas; Chicago, Illinois; Atlanta, Georgia; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and Kansas City, Missouri. The city of Appleton, Wisconsin lies within three counties (Outagamie, Calumet, and Winnebago), and is the county seat of Outagamie County. The city of Aurora, Illinois, a populous outlying suburb of Chicago, lies within four counties (Kane; DuPage; Will; and Kendall).
5. In Michigan, the city may petition to change the county boundaries to accord with the city boundaries. Historically, however, this has rarely been exercised. There are many cities that span county boundaries in Michigan.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Terminology", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki