In the United States a county is an administrative or political subdivision of a state that consists of a geographic region with specific boundaries and usually some level of governmental authority. The term "county" is used in 48 U.S. states, while Louisiana and Alaska have functionally equivalent subdivisions called parishes and boroughs, respectively.
Northwest Aroostook is an unincorporated area in Aroostook County, Maine, United States. The population was 10 at the 2010 census.
South Oxford is an unorganized territory located in Oxford County, Maine, United States. The population was 579 at the 2010 census. The unorganized territory encompasses the areas designated under state law as Albany Township, Mason Township, and Batchelder's Grant. Albany and Mason were formerly incorporated as towns. Albany disincorporated in 1937 while Mason disincorporated in 1935.
East Central Washington is an unorganized territory in Washington County, Maine, United States. The population was 728 at the 2010 census.
Whiteface Reservoir is an unorganized territory in Saint Louis County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 292 at the 2000 census.
An unincorporated area is a region not governed by a local municipal corporation. Similarly, an unincorporated community is a settlement not governed by its own local municipal corporation, but is administered as part of larger administrative divisions, such as a township, parish, borough, county, city, canton, state, province, or country. Occasionally, municipalities dissolve or disincorporate, which may happen if they become fiscally insolvent, and services become the responsibility of a higher administration. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world have either no unincorporated areas at all, or these are very rare; typically remote, outlying, sparsely populated, or uninhabited areas.
In the United States, a territory is any extent of region under the sovereign jurisdiction of the federal government of the United States, including all waters. The United States asserts sovereign rights for exploring, exploiting, conserving, and managing its territory. This extent of territory is all the area belonging to, and under the dominion of, the United States federal government for administrative and other purposes. The United States total territory includes a subset of political divisions.
A minor civil division (MCD) is a term used by the United States Census Bureau for primary governmental and/or administrative divisions of a county or county-equivalent, typically a municipal government such as a city, town, or civil township. MCDs are used for statistical purposes by the Census Bureau, and do not necessarily represent the primary form of local government. They range from non-governing geographical survey areas to municipalities with weak or strong powers of self-government. Some states with large unincorporated ares give substantial powers to counties; others have smaller or larger incorporated entities with governmental powers that are smaller than the MCD level chosen by the Census.
In 45 of the 50 states of the United States, the county is used for the level of local government immediately below the state itself. Louisiana uses parishes, and Alaska uses boroughs. In Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, some or all counties within states have no governments of their own; the counties continue to exist as legal entities, however, and are used by states for some administrative functions and by the United States Census bureau for statistical analysis. There are 3,242 counties and county equivalent administrative units in total, including the District of Columbia and 100 county-equivalents in the U.S. territories.
Political divisions of the United States are the various recognized governing entities that together form the United States – states, the District of Columbia, territories and Indian reservations.
The term regional county municipality or RCM is used in Quebec to refer to one of 87 county-like political entities. In some older English translations they were called county regional municipality.
An unorganized area or unorganized territory is any geographic region in Canada that does not form part of a municipality or Indian reserve. In these areas, the lowest level of government is provincial or territorial. In some of these areas, local service agencies may have some of the responsibilities that would otherwise be covered by municipalities.
The Unorganized Borough is made up of the portions of the U.S. state of Alaska which are not contained in any of its 19 organized boroughs. While referred to as the "Unorganized Borough", it is not a borough itself, as it forgoes that level of government structure. It encompasses nearly half of Alaska's land area, 323,440 square miles (837,700 km2), an area larger than any other U.S. state, and larger than the land area of the smallest 16 states combined. As of the 2000 U.S. Census, it had a population of 81,803, which was 13% of the population of the state.
The town is the basic unit of local government and local division of state authority in the six New England states. Most other U.S. states lack a direct counterpart to the New England town. New England towns overlay the entire area of a state, similar to civil townships in other states where they exist, but they are fully functioning municipal corporations, possessing powers similar to cities in other states. New Jersey's system of equally powerful townships, boroughs, towns, and cities is the system which is most similar to that of New England. New England towns are often governed by a town meeting legislative body. The great majority of municipal corporations in New England are based on the town model; there, statutory forms based on the concept of a compact populated place are uncommon, though elsewhere in the U.S. they are prevalent. County government in New England states is typically weak at best, and in some states nonexistent. Connecticut, for example, has no county governments, nor does Rhode Island. Both of those states retain counties only as geographic subdivisions with no governmental authority, while Massachusetts has abolished eight of fourteen county governments so far. Counties serve mostly as dividing lines for the states' judicial systems in the southern New England states, while only providing limited services in the three northern New England states.
The province of Quebec is divided into units at the regional, supralocal and local levels. The primary types of subdivision are administrative regions, regional county municipalities (RCMs), metropolitan communities (CMs), the Kativik Regional Government (KRG), unorganized territories (TNOs), agglomerations, northern villages, Cree villages, Naskapi villages, and a variety of local units which may collectively be referred to as local municipalities and boroughs.
A territory is an administrative division, usually an area that is under the jurisdiction of a sovereign state. In most countries, a territory is an organized division of an area that is controlled by a country but is not formally developed into, or incorporated into, a political unit of the country that is of equal status to other political units that may often be referred to by words such as "provinces" or "regions" or "states". In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or any non-sovereign geographic area which has come under the authority of another government; which has not been granted the powers of self-government normally devolved to secondary territorial divisions; or both.
Fort Snelling unorganized territory is an unincorporated area under the jurisdiction of Hennepin County in the U.S. state of Minnesota that is named after historic Fort Snelling, which is located within its boundaries. The district also includes Coldwater Spring park, Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, parts of the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, and several government facilities. As of the 2010 census the territory had a population of 149 people.
