County

A county (Latin: comitatus) is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes^[1] in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French comté denoting a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count (earl) or, in his stead, a viscount (vicomte).^[2] Literal equivalents in other languages, derived from the equivalent of "count", are now seldom used officially, including comté, contea, contado, comtat, condado, Grafschaft, graafschap, and zhupa in Slavic languages; terms equivalent to 'commune' or 'community' are now often instead used.

When the Normans conquered England, they brought the term with them. Although there were at first no counts, vicomtes or counties in Anglo-Norman England, the earlier Anglo-Saxons did have earls, sheriffs and shires. The shires were the districts that became the historic counties of England, and given the same Latin translation comitatus.^[3] Many English county names derive from the name of the county town (county seat) with the word shire added on, for example Gloucestershire and Worcestershire.^[4] The term "county" evolved to designate a level of local administration that was immediately beneath a national government, within a unitary (non-federal) system of government. "County" later also became used differently in some federal systems of government, for a local administrative division subordinate to a primary subnational entity, such as a Province (e.g. Canada) or a level 3 territorial unit such as NUTS 3 (Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics – Level 3).

Examples include the United States and Canada, which evolved from British colonial North America and inherited British governmental traditions, where counties often remain as local administrative divisions that evolved from historic (pre-federal) counties governed by courts/magistracy.

A county may be further subdivided into smaller jurisdictions such as hundreds, or townships. A county usually, but not always, contains cities, towns, townships, villages, or other municipal corporations, which in most cases are somewhat subordinate or dependent upon county governments. Depending on the nation, municipality, and local geography, municipalities may or may not be subject to direct or indirect county control. The functions of both levels are often consolidated into a city government when the area is densely populated, and are generally not when it is less densely populated.^[a]

Outside English-speaking countries, an equivalent of the term county is often used to describe subnational jurisdictions that are structurally equivalent to counties in the relationship they have with their national government;^[b] but which may not be administratively equivalent to counties in predominantly English-speaking countries.

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