County seat

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to navigationJump to search

A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of

a county or civil parish. The term is used in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and
the United States. The equivalent term shire town is used in the U.S. state
of Vermont and in some other English-speaking areas. [1] County towns have a similar
function in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, as well as historically in
Jamaica.

Contents

 1Function

 2Canada

 3China

o 3.1Lists of ROC county seats by county

 4United States

o 4.1U.S. counties with more than one county seat

o 4.2Other variations

 4.2.1New England

 4.2.2Virginia

 4.2.3South Dakota

 4.2.4Louisiana

 4.2.5Alaska

o 4.3Lists of U.S. county seats by state

 5See also

 6References

 7External links

Function[edit]
The old Queen Anne's County courthouse (1708), Maryland, U.S.

In most of the United States, counties are the political subdivisions of a state. The

city, town, or populated place that houses county government is known as
the seat of its respective county. Generally, the county legislature, county
courthouse, sheriff's department headquarters, hall of records, jail and correctional
facility are located in the county seat, though some functions (such as highway
maintenance, which usually requires a large garage for vehicles, along with asphalt
and salt storage facilities) may also be located or conducted in other parts of the
county, especially if it is geographically large.
A county seat is usually, but not always, an incorporated municipality. The
exceptions include the county seats of counties that have no incorporated
municipalities within their borders, such as Arlington County, Virginia (where the
county seat is the entire county[2]). Ellicott City, the county seat of Howard County, is
the largest unincorporated county seat in the United States, followed by Towson, the
county seat of Baltimore County, Maryland. Likewise, some county seats may not be
incorporated in their own right, but are located within incorporated municipalities. For
example, Cape May Court House, New Jersey, though unincorporated, is a section
of Middle Township, an incorporated municipality. In some of the colonial states,
county seats include or formerly included "Court House" as part of their name,
(e.g. Spotsylvania Courthouse, Virginia).

Canada[edit]
The Canadian provinces of Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince
Edward Island, and Nova Scotia have counties as an administrative division of
government below the provincial level, and thus county seats.
In the provinces of Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia the term
"shire town" is used in place of county seat.

China[edit]
Main articles: Counties of China and County (Taiwan)
Miaoli City is the county seat of Miaoli County.

County seats in China are the administrative centers of the counties in the People's
Republic of China or the Republic of China.
Xian have existed since the Warring States period and were set up nationwide by
the Qin dynasty.[3][4] The number of counties in China proper gradually increased from
dynasty to dynasty. As Qin Shi Huang reorganized the counties after his unification,
there were about 1,000. Under the Eastern Han dynasty, the number of counties
increased to above 1,000. About 1400 existed when the Sui dynasty abolished
the commandery level (郡 jùn), which was the level just above counties, and
demoted some commanderies to counties.
In Imperial China, the county was a significant administrative unit because it marked
the lowest level of the imperial bureaucratic structure; [citation needed] in other words, it was
the lowest level that the government reached. Government below the county level
was often undertaken through informal non-bureaucratic means, varying between
dynasties. The head of a county was the magistrate, who oversaw both the day-to-
day operations of the county as well as civil and criminal cases.
The current number of counties mostly resembled that of the later years of Qing
Dynasty. Changes of location and names of counties in Chinese history have been a
major field of research in Chinese historical geography, especially from the 1960s to
the 1980s. There are 1,355 counties in Mainland China out of a total of 2,851 county-
level divisions.
In Taiwan, the first counties were first established in 1661 by the Kingdom of
Tungning. The later ruler Qing empire inherited this type of administrative divisions.
With the increase of Han Chinese population in Taiwan, the number of counties also
grew by time. By the end of Qing era, there were 11 counties in Taiwan. Protestant
missionaries in China first romanized the term as hien.[5] When Taiwan became
a Japanese colony in 1895, the hierarchy of divisions also incorporated into
the Japanese system in the period when Taiwan under Japanese rule. By
September 1945, Taiwan was divided into 8 prefectures (州 and 廳), which remained
after the Republic of China took over Taiwan.
Currently there are 13 county seats in Taiwan, which are in the forms of county-
administered city, urban township or rural township.
Lists of ROC county seats by county[edit]
See also: County (Taiwan)

 Changhua City  Miaoli City  Taibao City

 Douliu City  Nangan Township  Taitung City
  Hualien City
 Nantou City  Yilan City
 Jincheng Township
 Pingtung City  Zhubei City
 Magong City

United States