Yeah. Could someone please explain this all to me?

What's it like with cities and counties and things where you live?

-- Anonymous, January 21, 2001

Answers

I must admit that I never really thought about this until I read Katie's entry, and now it's driving me nuts!
I live in the country of Canada, Province of Ontario, county of Prince Edward, and Village of Tweed, since we don't have enough people living here to warrant the title of "town".
I think when you get right down to it, it's basically taking things like country/province(state) to the extreme. A more exact way to know a locale, maybe?
To give cartographers more maps to make?

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2001

Ok, how's this for confusing....In Louisiana counties are called parishes (parishies? I can't spell). Now that I'm in Illinois I'm having a hell of a time calling Cook County a county and not a parish.

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2001

Hey, hey - your friendly life-long Virginia resident here...

The deal is basically that we have independent cities in Virginia (I think it's part and parcel with being a Commonwealth rather than a state.) So a city and a county are independent municipalities. For example, I'm from James City County. It surrounds the City of Williamsburg, but Williamsburg has its own government and all. In most other states, like yours, cities are a part of their county. So Seaford, for example, is really just a section of York County. They aren't a town really, any more than Denbigh is independent for Newport News. Larger than a neighborhood, but still not out there on its own.

That didn't help did it?

Sorry.

-Sarah

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2001

This is confusing me, too, Katie.. I'm originally from Wisconsin, and there are cities there. No one refers to their home as a county. But when I came to school in Ohio, apparently there are so many little, worthless towns that nobody knows about that everyone refers to which "county" they live in, just to make it easier than trying to explain where Bumblefuck is. (The exceptions would be the people from recognizable cities like the 'Nati, Columbus, Cleveland, etc).. but I don't know anything about Virginia..so. :)

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2001

From what I understand, this is a uniquely Virginia thing. (Nothing to do with being a Commonwealth--Pennsylvania's a Commonwealth, and it doesn't do this.) There's a select group of cities that are Cities with a capital C... they basically count the same as Counties. So, County of York, County of Gloucester, City of Newport News, City of Hampton--just switch the word "City" with "County" and you've got the gist of it.

I know a lot of this came about in the 1950s--for instance, Elizabeth City County and the surrounding towns consolidated into the City of Hampton--mostly to give these growing cities room to stretch out and to give those little rural towns more clout in the state legislature. This may require some research...

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2001

I don't have any insight as far as the Virginia thing goes, but here in Nebraska, Omaha has grown and now takes up all the land in Douglas County. There's no such thing as the Douglas County Sherriff" or anything because Omaha police can handle it. All the city stuff is integrated with the county stuff now.

That didn't help AT ALL, but at least I tried.

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2001

I know very little about Virginia, but here in Iowa (oooh, Iowa) you have cities within counties. I live in the city of Somers (population 110 or something- what a city!) which is in Calhoun County. There are ninety-nine counties in Iowa. What really drives ME nuts is that Des Moines (the state capital, for all you anti- geography people) is in Polk County, but there IS a Des Moines County. And Kossuth County is a double county. Why couldn't they just divide Kossuth County and have one hundred counties in Iowa instead of ninety-nine? Argh.

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2001

There's 21 counties in NJ. I could name them, but I don't want to bore you. They are all pretty normal, most of the counties are named after citys/towns. Like Morris country is named after Morristown (not to be confused with Moorestown..

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2001

As a VA resident, I guess I never noticed this. As far as I have seen, each city is part of a county-unless the county is called a city instead of a county. Like, I like in the city Springfield, which is in Fairfax County. The city of Fairfax is part of Fairfax County...so when they close schools, they just say Fairfax Co. Schools are closed, not Springfield City. I can't think of any cities that act as counties, as far as I know, most cities act within the gov't of the surrounding county.

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2001

Hmmm...I live in Virginia, and I never questioned this stuff before, but now I'm getting really confused. I live in Roanoke, Virginia. I live in Roanoke County but there's also a Roanoke City and the County surrounds Roanoke City. However, things are run both independently and dependently. Unlike the other Stephanie that replied here, if school closes-Roanoke City and Roanoke County close separately, and there are separate school boards and such. But basically, you would count city and county the same. "Where do you live?" "Roanoke." I think I may have it figured out in my head, but it's too impossible for me to write out! :) hehehe. No, it's sort of like you just "get it" if you live here long enough or something, even though you may explain it incorrectly like I am now, probably. Or not...

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2001

yeah, stef and i go to the same school. down the road is burke. if you say burke, people know what you're talking about. also, the subcommunities by elementary school. i live in cardinal forest, most people live in orange hunt or something close to it. it's not too hard to understand if you've been here forever. AND we're in west springfield, not just any old springfield. (= gotta love catagorizing people.

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2001

wow, reading all these is making me so incredibly cornfused. all this talk about counties and cities and independent cities and towns and counties named after cities...wow.

ok, here's the deal way out here in california. there are sections of the state that are divided into counties. inside these counties are cities. that's all there is to it. every city is in a county. like I live in Santa Clara County. There are about 10 different cities, each with their own mayor/police/etc. inside Santa Clara County - even a city called santa clara. every once in a while, you'll see a Santa Clara County police car, but they are rare, since each city has its own.

In Los Angeles, there's the LA County. inside the LA County are cities like LA itself, hollywood, west hollywood, etc. (I can't name them all, i don't live there.)

I'm pretty sure San Francisco is part of San Mateo County, but don't trust me on that one. Ask Greg, or something.

I hope that was a little less confusing than it could have been. jeez, some of the other states are just plain crazy - they don't know what the hell is going on!

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2001

Alright I live in Lynchburg Virginia, and I will explain... kind of:

Alright there are cities and there are counties. A county doesn't have a mayor but some crappy half-ass form of government like city council and a sheriff. The county's population has to be below a certain number to be a county and most counties (in central virginia at least) have a corn field and a house in it. Hell you can make a freakin' county if you have enough land and you can be sheriff, mayor, secretary of defense and whatever else you want.

Then the cities have a full on...ass form of government with a mayor and city council and stuff. The city's population is larger than a county and normally cities have businesses and shopping malls and crap.

Now Virginia is what we like to call... fucked up so that your cities don't fall in a county but in regions. Like I wouldn't say Lynchburg is in a certain county but it's in Central Virginia. And Newport News would be in Northern Virginia. I know, it's stupid.

But here's the thing that pisses me off; cities and counties with the same name. Like Bedford, there's Bedford County and Bedford, Bedford being the part of the county that has more than a stoplight and a cornfield in it. So confusing... :sigh:

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2001

Newport News is in southeastern Virginia, not northern.

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2001

how funny.. i live in santa clara county too... that's weird

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2001

I really have nothing meaningful to contribute to this conversation, but notice I'm going to speak up anyway.

New York has 62 counties. We're pretty standard with the way we set things up: cities, towns, villages, etc. within counties, not counties as stand-alone units. Get this, though: NYC counts as 5 of those 62 counties. Yes, each borough is its own county. So in other words, the state is 57 counties plus the City, which really ought to be asked to break off from the rest of the state, preferably via strategially placed explosives. I can tell you're so not impressed.

See? I told you all I had nothing meaningful to contribute. But no, you didn't believe me... =^)

-- Anonymous, January 24, 2001

northern va ends about twenty minutes from me. you can REALLY tell the difference even between schools in our county. springfield/fairfax county is northern va. we're not too far outside of d.c.

-- Anonymous, January 24, 2001

This won't help, but Australia doesn't have counties or parish's. But we do have KFC, not that it's related to this conversation. heh.

-- Anonymous, January 24, 2001

Dude, Laura - we should form a club for everyone who reads Katie's journal and lives in or near Santa Clara! And we could talk about what's up in her life, and send her letters and then she'll send us back fake autographed digitally altered pictures of herself. We'll be just like one of those corny Fan Clubs for people like Ronald Reagan and Brittany Spears (I have a friend who belongs to both of them! It's sick, really)...

Um...yeah, just kidding... :o)

-- Anonymous, January 24, 2001

Erm...

-- Anonymous, January 25, 2001

here it's just towns within counties...any other way seems kind of...fucked up?

-- Anonymous, January 25, 2001

Someone mentioned San Francisco being in San Mateo County...it's not. I live in The City[tm] and San Francisco is in San Francisco County. I think it's the only city in the county, though Daly City might be, too, not entirely sure.

-- Anonymous, January 26, 2001

hah! Mine is simple. I live in Jacksonville, FL. Which is in Duval County... but it takes up ALL of Duval county. And a little extra in some places. And a little less in other places.

Okay. Maybe I'm confused too.

-- Anonymous, January 27, 2001

Man, I wish I had been here for this discussion.

It is a strictly Virginia phenomenon that cities are not incorporated or take up any geographic space from the counties that surround them. Makes them cities feel real special. What gets me though is that Newport News has both a police department AND a sheriff's office, and I have no idea why, or what functions each does to the exclusion of the other.

-- Anonymous, January 29, 2001

Okay, I did learn this. In Virginia we have towns inside of counties. Cities are seperate from counties making it so city dwellers don't have to pay both county AND city taxes -- so it kind of makes things cheaper, but if I know politics, we're getting screwed either way. Plus, in cities there are definately things like trash pick-up; whereas in counties if they want it they have to vote to make it part of the city functions or they can pay Joe Blow from down the street to pick it up and drop it off at the dumpster site.

Finally, I learned that as a commonwealth we cannot go into debt without it being voted upon.

If this helps great; if it doesn't sorry.

-- Anonymous, January 29, 2001