| Counties of Delaware | |
|---|---|
| Location | State of Delaware |
| Number | 3 |
| Populations | 189,789 (Kent) – 578,592 (New Castle) |
| Areas | 494 square miles (1,280 km2) (New Castle) – 1,196 square miles (3,100 km2) (Sussex) |
| Government | |
| Subdivisions | |
The U.S. state of Delaware is divided into three counties, the fewest of any state in the United States: New Castle, Kent and Sussex. [1] The origin of the county boundaries goes back to their former court districts.
Each county elects a legislative body (known in New Castle and Sussex counties as the County Council, and in Kent County as the Levy Court). The counties are able to raise taxes and borrow money. They also have control over garbage disposal, water supply, sewerage, zoning, development, and building codes. [2]
Most functions which are handled on a county-by-county basis in other states—such as court and law enforcement—have been centralized in Delaware, leading to a significant concentration of power in the Delaware state government. The counties were historically divided into hundreds, which were used as tax reporting and voting districts until the 1960s. However, the hundreds now serve no administrative role; their only current official legal use is in real-estate title descriptions. [3]
Following the English conquest of 1664, all of the land on the western side of the Delaware River and Delaware Bay was governed as part of the New York Colony and administered from the town of New Castle. During the brief recapture of the colony by the Dutch in 1673, additional court districts were created around Upland and Whorekill. [4] The latter was also known as Hoornkill, and is now the town of Lewes. [5] The court at New Castle was left with the central portion of the colony. The jurisdiction left to the court at became New Castle County, and the county seat remained at New Castle until 1881 when it was moved to Wilmington. In 1680, Whorekill District was divided into Deale County and St. Jones County. [6] After this division, Lewes became the county seat of Deale, which was later renamed Sussex County. [6] The former Upland District was named after the New Sweden settlement of Upland, and was renamed Chester County in 1682. [7] Chester County is now located within the present boundaries of Pennsylvania. [8]
Lord Baltimore, the Proprietor of Maryland, claimed all present-day Delaware, and organized its northern and eastern portions as Durham County, Maryland. However, this county existed only on paper. The southern and western portions of present-day Sussex County were organized as portions of several adjacent Maryland counties and were not recognized as part of Delaware until the Mason-Dixon Survey was run in 1767. [9] In 1791, with the expansion of Sussex County to the south and west, the county seat was moved to Georgetown. [6] The county seat of St. Jones (renamed Kent County in 1681 [6] ) is at Dover. [6]
After 2000, a fourth "Appoquinimink County" was proposed to be carved out of New Castle County. The effort intended to end the zoning restrictions of the Unified Development Code on the undeveloped farmland. [10]
The Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) code, which is used by the United States government to uniquely identify counties, is provided with each entry. The FIPS code for each county links to census data for that county.
| County | FIPS code [11] | County seat [6] [12] | Est. [6] [12] | History [6] [13] | Etymology [13] | Population [14] | Area [12] | Map |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KentCounty | 001 | Dover | 1680 | Created from Whorekill (Hoarkill) District. Formerly known as St. Jones County. | named in 1682 by William Penn for the English county of Kent | 189,789 | 800 sq mi (2,072 km2) |  |
| New CastleCounty | 003 | Wilmington | 1664 | Original County (Formally New Amstel) | named in 1673 by Dutch Governor Anthony Colve for the town of New Castle, Delaware as an Anglicization of Nieuw Amstel. | 578,592 | 494 sq mi (1,279 km2) |  |
| SussexCounty | 005 | Georgetown | 1664 | Created from Whorekill (Hoarkill) District. Formerly known as Deale County | named in 1682 by William Penn for the English county of Sussex, which was his home county | 263,509 | 1,196 sq mi (3,098 km2) |  |
Delaware is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic states region of the United States. It borders Maryland to its south and west, Pennsylvania to its north, New Jersey to its northeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state's name derives from the adjacent Delaware Bay, which in turn was named after Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, an English nobleman and the Colony of Virginia's first colonial-era governor.
New Sweden was a colony of the Swedish Empire along the lower reaches of the Delaware River between 1638 and 1655 in present-day Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania in the United States. Established during the Thirty Years' War when Sweden was a great power, New Sweden formed part of the Swedish efforts to colonize the Americas.
The Delmarva Peninsula, or simply Delmarva, is a large peninsula on the East Coast of the United States, occupied by the vast majority of the state of Delaware and parts of the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Eastern Shore of Virginia.
Kent County is a county located in the central part of the U.S. state of Delaware. As of the 2020 census, the population was 181,851, making it the least populous county in Delaware. The county seat is Dover, the state capital of Delaware. It is named for Kent, an English county.
New Castle County is the northernmost of the three counties of the U.S. state of Delaware. As of the 2020 census, the population was 570,719, making it the most populous county in Delaware, with nearly 60% of the state's population of 989,948. The county seat is Wilmington, which is also the state's most populous city. New Castle County is included in the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD Metropolitan Statistical Area. The county is named after William Cavendish, 1st duke of Newcastle. New Castle County has the highest population and population density of any Delaware county, and it is the smallest county in the state by area. It has more people than the other two counties, Kent and Sussex, combined. It is also the most economically developed of the three.
Sussex County is a county in the southern part of the U.S. state of Delaware, on the Delmarva Peninsula. As of the 2020 census, the population was 237,378, making it the state's second most populated county only behind New Castle and ahead of Kent. The county seat is Georgetown.
Delaware County, colloquially referred to as Delco, is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. With a population of 576,830 as of the 2020 census, it is the fifth-most populous county in Pennsylvania and the third-smallest in area. The county was created on September 26, 1789, from part of Chester County and named for the Delaware River. The county is part of the Southeast Pennsylvania region of the state.
Lewes is an incorporated city on the Delaware Bay in eastern Sussex County, Delaware, United States. According to the 2020 census, its population was 3,303. Along with neighboring Rehoboth Beach, Lewes is one of the principal cities of Delaware's rapidly growing Cape Region. The city lies within the Salisbury, Maryland–Delaware Metropolitan Statistical Area. Lewes proudly claims to be "The First Town in The First State."
Georgetown is a town and the county seat of Sussex County, Delaware, United States. According to the 2010 census, the population of the town is 6,422, an increase of 38.3% over the previous decade.
A rape is a traditional territorial sub-division of the county of Sussex in England, formerly used for various administrative purposes. Their origin is unknown, but they appear to predate the Norman Conquest of 1066. Historically, the rapes formed the basis of local government in Sussex.
The Eastern Shore of Maryland is a part of the U.S. state of Maryland that lies mostly on the east side of the Chesapeake Bay. Nine counties are normally included in the region. The Eastern Shore is part of the larger Delmarva Peninsula that Maryland shares with Delaware and Virginia.
David Hall was an American lawyer and politician from Lewes, in Sussex County, Delaware. He was an officer in the Continental Army during the American Revolution, and member of the Democratic-Republican Party, who served as Governor of Delaware.
The Delaware State Police (DSP) is a division of the Delaware Department of Public Safety and Homeland Security and is responsible for traffic regulation and law enforcement across the US State of Delaware, especially in areas underserved by local police departments. The DSP is headquartered in the capital Dover, Delaware.
John Grubb (1652–1708) was a two-term member of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly and was one of the original settlers in a portion of Brandywine Hundred that became Claymont, Delaware. He founded a large tannery that continued in operation for over 100 years at what became known as Grubb's Landing. He was also one of the 150 signers of the Concessions and Agreements for Province of West Jersey.
The monument at the William Penn Landing Site in Chester, Pennsylvania marks the spot of the first landing of William Penn on the territory of Pennsylvania, on October 28 or 29, 1682 (O.S.). Penn, the founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, landed in the only town in the province, then known as Upland.
Elections were held in Delaware on Tuesday, November 2, 2010. Primary elections were held on September 14, 2010.
The Penn–Calvert boundary dispute was a long-running legal conflict between William Penn and his heirs on one side, and Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore and his heirs on the other side. The overlapping nature of their charters of land in Colonial America required numerous attempts at mediation, surveying, and intervention by the king and courts of England to ultimately be resolved. Subsequent questions over these charters have also been adjudicated by American arbitrators and the Supreme Court of the United States. The boundary dispute shaped the eventual borders of five U.S. states: Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and West Virginia.
