Summary
U.S. Counties represents the counties of the United States in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.
Description
The polygons represent the counties within the United States. The primary legal divisions of most states are termed counties. In Louisiana, these divisions are known as parishes. In Alaska, which has no counties, the equivalent entities are the organized boroughs, city and boroughs, municipalities, and census areas. In the states Maryland, Missouri, Nevada, and Virginia, there are one or more incorporated places that are independent of any county organization and thus constitute primary divisions of their states. These incorporated places are known as independent cities and are treated as equivalent entities for purposes of data presentation. The District of Columbia has no primary divisions, and is considered an equivalent entity for purposes of data presentation. All of the counties in Connecticut and Rhode Island and nine counties in Massachusetts were dissolved as functioning governmental entities; however, the Census Bureau continues to present data for these historical entities in order to provide comparable geographic units at the county level of the geographic hierarchy for these states and represents them as nonfunctioning legal entities in data products. The Census Bureau treats municipios in Puerto Rico as equivalents of counties for purposes of data presentation.
