In the
United States counties are administrative subdivisions of a state.
There are 3,069 U.S. counties, which vary greatly in size and population. They range in area from 67 square kilometers (Arlington County, Virginia) to 227,559 square kilometers (North Slope Borough, Alaska). The population of counties varies from Loving County, Texas, with 140 residents to Los Angeles County, California, which is home to 9.1 million people.
Most states have counties, but there are some exceptions, these are the ones I know of:
- Alaska has boroughs, which apparently don't do everything a county in the lower 48 would do.
- Louisiana has parishes, which as far as I can tell do pretty much the same thing as counties in other states.