Talk:County/Archive 1

Areas larger/smaller than county
I've added "township" in the definitions to the list of areas smaller than a county. I've also removed the words "region" and "district". These two are fluid terms which, depending on the specific usage may be either larger or smaller than counties. Although some countries may have specific applications for them, that is not always the case. Admitedly regions tend to be bigger than districts, but even there we are often talking about informal extra-judicial concepts for the convenience of others. In Ontario, Canada the "counties" in the northern part of the province are even called "district". Looking up the terms "lakes district" and "lakes region" on Google gives a mind-boggling array of results. Eclecticology, Monday, May 20, 2002

Counties in Canada
There are counties in Canada, but I have no idea how closely they relate to the counties in the United States. Could some kind Canadian, or someone with knowledge, add to this article as appropriate? -- Zoe


 * user:Bryan Derksen is Canadian if I recall. --maveric149


 * I'm a Canadian...right now, I could probably add some bare-bones information, limited to Ontario, because, without research, I'm not sure how similar other provinces would be...but I may look into that in the next few days - Cafemusique


 * Apparently all Maritime provinces are completely divided each into around or less than a dozen counties (see List of New Brunswick counties and List of Nova Scotia counties). PEI has 3 counties. So I assume each county comprises of several towns or cities, and isn't an equivalent of a city ever. But I think only very southern Ontario has counties. --Menchi 01:48 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * For Central Canada: See List of Ontario counties & List of Quebec counties. --Menchi 07:44, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure counties are not local gov't units in NB or NS, and it's misleading to say they are in ON, in which "regional municipalities" have emerged as a super-municipal level of gov't ... I would say that in all five formerly-countied provinces, counties are maintained as a geographical division for the resolution of redundant colloquial place names, the promotion of tourism, and in some cases for historical records-keeping. Is this wrong? In the absence of a counterproposal within a few days I will change the article to this effect. Sharkford 20:31, 2004 Aug 19 (UTC)

Alberta is subdivided into municipal districts, which may either call themselves MDs or Counties (e.g. Leduc County). MDs have responsibility for local government services (e.g. road construction, zoning) in much the same way as cities and towns do in urban areas. Previously, counties in Alberta were rural municipalities which had responsibility for education; MDs had school districts which were not part of the municipality. With school district consolidation in the 1990s, the distinction became immaterial and the status of counties became the same as that of MDs in January 1995 with the repeal of the County Act, but most former counties have retained the title. Contrary to what the main article suggests, census divisions are not used for anything other than statistical purposes in Alberta: rural local government goes through municipal districts (except in Special Areas which are historical anomalies governed directly by the province).

User:Efghij has added the new section: County. --Menchi 09:38, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * I don't think it's misleading to say that counties exist in ON, since, well, they do. Regional municipalities are simply taking the notion of a county one step further, and they are usually restricted to urban areas anyway.  Counties in Ontario function very much as counties in the US do; they handle unincorporated lands as well as overarching services such as water, sewage (if any), hydro, etc.  Also, county governments do exist; they are not just a simple "geographic division" or for the sole purpose of promoting tourism.  Needless to say, the notion of a "county" -- especially in Canada, where municipal subdivision types vary widely across the country -- is somewhat complicated.  But that is no reason to change anything, or to try and come up with an overarching definition of what it is with respect to Canada. Darkcore 00:33, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Ordering of country sections
Is there any rhyme or reason to the ordering of the country sections. Would anybody object if I moved the country sections into alphabetical order? - Cafemusique 12:12 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * Please do. It was most likely because it was written in that order. --Menchi

counties/powiats of Poland
I started a WikiProject Geography of Poland some time ago. Its purpose is to settle a naming policy on powiats, gminas and voivodships of Poland as well as create infoboxes for all levels of administrative division of Poland. Please participate! [[User:Halibutt|Halibutt]] 12:42, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

Duplication of other article contents
It seems there is a lot of duplication in the country-specific sections with the separate articles for those countries. In particular the section on UK appears to be identical to the entire article Counties of the United Kingdom. I think it would be better to just include a much smaller synopsis in this article and then link to the full article, somewhat like the US section does. If no one has an objection I may try to do this (although I'd prefer somebody more familiar with the UK do it). Dmeranda 21:51, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Naming shires in England
Quote: "In most cases, the shires were named after their shire town (for example Bedfordshire) however exceptions to this rule exist, such as Wiltshire."

Question: Was Wiltshire not named after its then shire town, Wilton? Or did their names have a common origin?

Quote from History of Wiltshire: "By the 9th Century the district had acquired a definite administrative and territorial organization, Walstan, ealdorman of the Wilsaetan, being mentioned as early as Soc as repelling an attempted invasion of the Mercia".
 * replying to anonymous: Though I'm not an expert, I would be willing to bet that Wiltshire is not an exception. By the way, please sign (using ~ ) when posting, thanks. --Storkk 01:56, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

By the way, although there is NOW no connection between counties and earldoms in Britain, originally they were the same thing. Looking at medieval history shows earls of York, Cornwall, Lancaster, Leicester, Essex, Surrey, Hereford, Hertford, Monmouth and so on. Earls were, effectively, local governors, before a formal county structure was established by the Normans.

Exile 14:56, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if anyone wants to follow this up and find a reference but (from reading the above) I remember reading an article about cornwall orginally being split into counties itself (some of which were -shire counties). 131.111.8.104

Counties switching into Regional or Metropolitan Municipalities
That first paragraph is legalese, as far as I'm concerned. Do Jacksonville, Florida and Miami, Florida qualify under that convoluted definition? Zoe (216.234.130.130 00:13, 21 December 2005 (UTC))

Atlanta
Should this part of this article be seperated out? There's about as much here on Atlanta as the rest of the US combined. CSZero 22:00, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

County Councils in Australia
Very little is mentioned of County Councils in Australia, however until recently County Councils were responsible for issues such as distribution of electricity. They had boards and significant turnovers, and board membership on a county council may have been an important step in a political career, or a reward for loyalty.

It would be worthwhile to have some articles regarding the major county councils in at least NSW - not sure of other states. Garrie 05:00, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Remove Source tag
As this article has a reference section that directs the reader to appropriate sources a more specific tag is probably neccesary perhaps the "citation needed" tag could be used if a specific statement is a problem. The tag that was used was the wrong one for this article. --Matt 08:03, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Counties of Germany
German Länder are no Counties but federals states. German Kreise are sometimes called "counties", sometimes "districts" in English. Consequently the link Counties of Germany is going to Districts of Germany. Therefore I changed it from Länder to Kreise. --213.182.122.47 12:41, 23 February 2007 (UTC)