Why are US counties big in the West but small in the East?

▶ In this video I talk about the odd size difference between counties in the Eastern and Western regions of the United States. First, acknowledging the difference that exists, then using two specific states (Nevada and South Carolina) as an example - comparing their average county number, plus their respective average size and population. Then moving on to understand how County limits are drawn based on their resident population, rather than their size. Then listing out the other key factors that seem to contribute to County sizes; such as topography and terrain, climate, geographic location, history and dates of establishment, property availability and cost, local economy and differences in governance style.
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Intro
00:40 Nevada & South Carolina: A Case Study
02:13 The Importance Of Population Size & Density
03:01 County Limits Are About People, Not Land
03:31 Larger Counties By Area vs By Size
03:40 The Importance Of Topography / Terrain
04:14 Difference In Climate Types
04:42 Location Location Location
04:56 Regions' History & Dates Of Establishment
06:08 Differences In Property Availability, Size, & Value
06:24 Western Primary Sector vs Eastern Secondary & Tertiary Sectors
06:49 Slower Western Settlement & 'Temporary' County Lines
07:28 Differences In Governance Style: European Influence vs 'Wild West'
07:53 Summary
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[@lillyie]

don't let this distract you from the fact iowa has 99 counties, short of a perfect 100 due to a specific large county

[@jack8580]

And it's just a man made grid😭

[@Epic_Egg]

There used to be another county where the big county is

[@farwynd2925]

What happened​@@Epic_Egg

[@farwynd2925]

@@jamesbaron195 can't be that bad

[@Epic_Egg]

@@farwynd2925 it was called Bancroft County and it only lasted 6 years before becoming a part of Kossuth County (the big county) because Bancroft County wasn't suitable for farming

[@RichardDiazWright]

New York City is split into 5 counties. Los Angeles County has 88 cities. I think that's a good way to show the difference between the east coast and west coast.

[@nlpnt]

Rhode Island has five counties (although no county-level government aside from sheriffs' departments). San Bernardino County is 13 times the size of Rhode Island.

[@brushychuteshatco]

New York City is the only American city where the city government has more authority than the county government.

[@michaelscheel9533]

But those counties in the NYC were there before NYC was created. In fact the FDNY was formed the year before New York City was formed. Younkers was considered but declined joining.

[@Accentor100]

The real extreme is Cook County Illinois which has 134 cities.

[@gustavelofsson9716]

Burroughs, not counties I think

[@peterzavon3012]

Don't forget that as the western states were being populated, the speed of communication (telegraph, telephone, railroads, and automobiles) increased compared to the slower rates (by foot or horse) in the eastern regions.

[@scottmartin5990]

Increasing speed of transportation and communication was definitely the key factor. Most of the western states were settled after the introduction of railroads and telegraphs, and the majority of their population growth occured after cars and telephones. With those technologies there's no need to subdivide so much.

[@lucylane7397]

Also a lot of the western states are just less productive deserts and mountains

[@JmKrokY]

Cool

[@aelfredrex8354]

Pennsylvania started with only three counties. As the population grew and moved outward, new counties were formed, not only due to complaints about distances between courthouses, but for representation in the Assembly, which had a bad habit of overlooking business that pertained to the outer edges of the colony.

[@mabryperry1829]

In the early days (1700's and 1800's) people frequently petitioned for a new county when enough people had to travel more than a day to get to the county courthouse. Nowadays, it's easier to travel farther, so it's not a problem like it was before. Very interesting video, thank you!

[@ronwinkles2601]

You are exactly correct! Most eastern counties are 200 years older or more than western counties. The main means of transportation for these older was by foot, horse or boat. Consequently, counties were restricted in size to allow citizens to travel no more than 20 miles to the county seat. Western counties had the advantage of railroads, steamboats and canals to make their journeys faster despite having a greater distance to cover.

[@Whatevenisthis1983]

Fun fact: the only dry county in the Western US is Lincoln County in Nevada. It borders Clark County where Vegas is, arguably one of the wettest.

[@DarthLiam-gd1wc]

May I ask you how clark county is one of the wettest counties? Las vegas in particular is known to be a very dry city.

[@geraldga9362]

​​@@DarthLiam-gd1wc I think he's using "dry" and "wet" in terms of alcohol sales. Dry meaning that alcohol isn't sold there. At least, that's the terminology we use down here in the south.

[@Whatevenisthis1983]

Correct

[@DarthLiam-gd1wc]

@@geraldga9362 ah thanks, I didn't think of that.

[@leechjim8023]

​@@geraldga9362One weird fact: Jack Daniels is made in a dry county!😮

[@edielungreen]

You correctly pronouncing “Oregon” is both impressive and joy-giving ❤️😸. Keep up the good work!

[@craigthompson9560]

For the Midwest, you need to look at the Northeest Ordinance of 1785 which set up how territories in the old Northwest could become states. The Ordinance also mandated how political subdivisions (counties and townships) were to be created and their size.

[@General.Knowledge]

Very interesting! Thank you

[@bluebird6665]

ever since i have been young i have watched your videos, I want to just say thanks for this amazing channel

[@General.Knowledge]

Thanks! I'm really happy you've been around for so long :) It's strange to think that it's already been 6/7 years since I started making these.

[@michaelrae9599]

The FIRST reason is terrain, because the terrain dictates how populated an area can be. The mountain ranges and deserts were there before the people.

[@nlpnt]

Nevada is an interesting example because almost the entire population lives in Clark County which contains Las Vegas and its' metro area, and that cluster of small counties in the northwestern part of the state around Reno and Carson City. The latter had most of the population in the 19th/early 20th century. Las Vegas didn't really become a city until after WW2 and wasn't even a town until around 1920.

[@sussexisalbania8959]

Isn't this same about Phoenix Arizona

[@SurgicalStrike41]

I have relatives who live in Sparks, the main suburb outside of Reno. Nevada really is exceptional. It's the Greater Las Vegas area, the Carson City-Reno belt in a distant second, and Elko in a very remote third and that's about it. Just flying in you see how much uninhabited (tbf most of it is completely uninhabitable) desert there is

[@gosnooky]

Fun fact - California has both the largest county by size (San Bernardino, as you pointed out), and the largest county by population (Los Angeles at ~10 million), and they border each other. Furthermore, the vast majority of San Bernardino county's population is in the southwestern corner, where the city of San Bernardino lies.

[@awedelen1]

Louisiana used to have only 12 counties/parishes and now has 64. Personally, I think that's too many. Local government could save some real money in administrative costs if the number were reduced by half.

[@vladimirkurtovic]

But then bureaucracy can blame some places for own mistakes or "mistakes" 🤔😊

[@awedelen1]

@@vladimirkurtovic You're right Vlad. And that's only one reason why it'll not happen. There are always more immediate problems to tackle and only a few want to entertain imaginative ideas. Oh well.

[@leisti]

So you want 63½ parishes?

[@awedelen1]

@@leisti No, 32 or 33 would be fine.

[@General.Knowledge]

There seems to be a real lack of common sense in this. It's either a ridiculously large and mostly unecessary number, or way too few.

[@adirax1026]

I watched a lot of your videos some time ago. I watched this video and was surprised how much better you made the new videos. I mean just look at the intro. It really makes more fun watching your videos

[@pharmesq]

San Bernardino is only slightly smaller than West Virginia, and has more people. And it borders 4 fairly comparable counties - Kern, Riverside, Los Angeles, and Clark (NV). Southwestern Counties are practically state-sized. And thats part of why they are as they are - five politicians in the West in each county like that get to wield a lot of political power over a fiefdom that compares favorably to some Eastern states. They don't want to shrink their personal power, so they resist efforts to subdivide the counties today.

[@lukeporras1288]

In my opinion, the number of Supervisors in many Southwestern County Boards of Supervisors should at least be increased. Citizens of Maricopa County (Arizona) have far more representation in the State Senate (1 Senator for every 245k people) than they do in the “local” county government (1 Supervisor for every 910k people). It’s absurd. Maricopa County’s Board of Supervisors should probably be run by 20-30 Supervisors, not 5.

[@charlesalwyn3486]

You should check out how Virginia does things…very peculiar…cities are not within counties. Could make a fun video!

[@jack8580]

Yes!! It is very interesting. For example, Winchester is an independent city completely surrounded by a county. Same goes for Falls Church

[@General.Knowledge]

I'll add it to my list! Thanks :)

[@RichardDiazWright]

New York City is split into 5 counties. Los Angeles County has 88 cities. I think that's a good way to show the difference between the east coast and west coast.

[@archstanton6102]

I live in Arlington county in North Virginia

[@thomasdevine867]

The horse rider there and back theory is mainly a Southern thing. I think it was actually a real legal thing in 19th century Georgia.

[@allenwiddows7631]

From a California perspective, splitting of new counties from larger ones is next to impossible these days, as there must be a majority vote to approve the formation of a new county in both sections of the existing county in question. Even if the majority of the voters in the new county want to split away, if the majority in the existing county say “No,” that’s the end of it-no new county. This has been the case since 1894; that is why the last new county formed in California was Imperial County, which split off from San Diego County in 1907. Before 1894, the state legislature could create new counties when the need became clear.

[@gosnooky]

PoLiTIcS

[@thelegendarysaus]

You should do a multi part series where you dive into every county in the US. It would be extremely long and tedious, but it could give some cool insights about parts of the country nobody hears about. Just a thought though.

[@amberswafford9305]

I’d watch that.

[@07mk07]

There are more than 3000 counties/county equivalents in the US. That would be one long series. 254 alone are in Texas.

[@GenericUsername1388]

Each county has an average of 100k people. Imagine 3143 Seychelles decided to form a single country and thats basically the USA.

[@Accentor100]

I think you pretty much nailed it. I can speak for California's counties as we have more of them now than we did when CA became a state. Orange County was once part of Los Angeles County. San Diego County once included parts of what are now San Bernardino and Inyo Counties as well of all of what are now Riverside and Imperial Counties. Alameda County was created out of parts of Contra Costa and Santa Clara Counties. San Mateo County was once part of San Francisco County, the latter now being a combined city and county.

[@gosnooky]

Funny you mentioned the fact that the old San Diego county consisted of parts of San Bernardino and Inyo counties - this was reflected by these areas having the same 619 area code after it split from 714 in 1982.

[@craigrohn9938]

Anoher tidbit is that early in a state's history, counties formed would sometimes be of mmense size until other counties would be carved out of it as lands were settled. Wayne County, Michigan predates both the state and territory of Michigan, formed by the Northwest Territory in 1796. It initially covered all of what is now Michigan except for the western Upper Peninsula, the eastern reaches of Wisconsin along Lake Michigan, a small section of Illinois bordering the lake, including what would later be Chicago, and northern Ohio all the way to modern day Cleveland. Of course, it couldn't actually govern all of this land (A good chunk of it was still occupied by British troops) and its governance initially was centered in the area around Detroit, the county seat. Wayne County was itself formed out of two other Northwest Territory counties, so Knox County (Vincennes) and Hamilton County, (Cincinnati), which Wayne County was carved out of, were probably even bigger. Today all three are just averaged sized counties in the Midwest., with all other counties in Michigan, Indiana and most of Ohio carved out of them over the ensuing century.

[@Joshua-ko7vw]

I remember being taught that they wanted you to be able to reach the county seat in a single day travel (by horse) in the beginning. As you go further west railroads were a thing. Maybe apocryphal, not sure

[@gosnooky]

Probably, but probably rooted in a truth somewhere.

[@chwarae2016]

Great video.

[@benjaminsteele13]

On governance style, it's worth throwing 2 things out there: 1. Counties are for the most part subdivisions of state government without as much ability to make law. This separates them from a city, which, once it has home rule can create ordinances and do more. So that's going to mean that a) states find it less necessary to have as many access points in the later years of settlement and b) cities are much more important in producing identity. 2. Counties in the west provide anchors for metropolitan governance. In a place like Austin, Travis County, Texas, the county includes far fewer of the suburbs than Seattle, King County, Washington or Phoenix, Maricopa County, Arizona. In the latter two, metropolitan planning is possible at the county level for things like bus and rapid transit systems that cross many municipalities. Austin is more constrained by not having a county that contains as many of its neighboring municipalities along the I-35 highway corridor, which means it has to create regional government districts like Cap Metro, which has board members installed by county governments rather than being directly installed by voters. I don't know if that's fully to blame for Austin's slow light rail creation, but it does seem slow even now when I live in famously slow-to-build Seattle. Counties there feel like an impediment while my county in Seattle feels like a regional body that has more purpose.

[@rikkichunn8856]

Another factor is historical. Some states were primarily settled by people from parts of Europe where counties were large, others small. For example, Delaware, the second smallest state by area, has 3 counties. Rhode Island, smallest state by area, has 9. South Carolina has so many counties because it was planned out and settled mostly by people from London, where counties are small. Louisiana was settled by French people from Canada, where there were (outside of Ontario) no counties as yet. The most familiar local land unit to them was the parish, which is historically the area around a neighborhood church. So Louisiana has parishes, and they are smaller than counties in most states. Nevada would probably have fewer counties than it does, but there was a rush to get another free (non-slave) state admitted to the Union. So the oldest populated area, around Reno and Carson City was divided into many small counties so the state would appear more settled. In California, over time, it has become harder to subdivide a county. So, history is an important factor too.

[@richdobbs6595]

As a part of the governance argument, in places in the west where population has boomed, this occurred later after cars were a thing and political parties and politicians were more sophisticated in evaluating who would gain from some dividing a county. In Colorado, there has been one county, Broomfield, established since cars became widespread, in 2001. At the same time there are counties that were established during the Silver Rush and are now mostly depopulated.

[@michaelscheel9533]

Your question about the travel of a farmer or actually anyone to go to the Courthouse and return the same day is why Iowa has 99 counties. It was proposed to reduce the numbers of counties in the State but I doubt it would get anywhere.

[@mikehart5619]

What I heard from locals when I moved to west Texas was that county seats were established two days ride from each other so that they were in the middle of the county and everyone in the county could ride to the county seat in a day to conduct business. It explains all the square counties with the seat in the center but I don't now that it is actually true.

[@PeloquinDavid]

The role of history - especially of agricultural settlement and then of rural depopulation when economies became industrialized and even agriculture became mechanized - is an important part of the story, I think. Americans are particularly conservative when it comes to how they organize their structures of government: look at their antiquated, barely democratic federal constitution! And that means the form (though not necessarily the functions) of municipal structures there tend to become preserved in aspic long after the world has changed... You just have to set foot over the US's northern border to see how little regularity you can find in how actual municipal structures (whatever their named "types") line up with contemporary economic and demographic realities. Up here in Canada, the size of municipal entities (the nomenclature varies by province) often shifts dramatically as you cross provincial boundaries - even between adjacent provinces with similar geographies and economic histories! It is also much more likely to shift with trends that wax and wane, to very different degrees, in relation to municipal amalgamation (which is much more of a "thing" in Canada because of how powerful our provinces are, compared to US states...) For example, as in the US, our eastern (Atlantic coastal) provinces are much smaller geographically, much older and still show the traces of their maritime past. Some of them still have "counties" - a quaint heritage of their British past they also share with a few other provinces - but the latter perform minimal governmental functions in most cases. "Towns" and "cities" are where most municipal action is in this country (and in any developed urbanized country, really) and there's always been a tendency here to "carve out" more "urban" areas from the more sparsely bits (often sharing the same name) they grew out of. But even in adjacent provinces there are stark differences in the number, size and population densities of municipal units. So while you find many tiny "towns" and "villages" on rocky Newfoundland, separated by virtually empty and effectively "unorganized" bush - as well as on tiny (agricultural) Prince Edward Island and very "Appalachian" New Brunswick - equally "Appalachian" Nova Scotia has many fewer/larger municipalities. A very mixed pattern also shows up as you move west into provinces that have VERY extensive "empty quarters"/full wilderness, especially across their northern bits. (The parallel with many western states in the US is obvious.) Québec: lots of low-population municipalities in rural areas (and lots of separate urban and suburban municipalities too) - but also geographically huge, empty and minimally organized ones in the north. Ontario: still a role for large historical (mostly rural) "counties" - the province used to be much more "British" than it is today - but a lot of low-population units (especially in more remote, low-density areas but also in urban/suburban and "exurban" areas) have gone through provincially forced amalgamations in recent decades. Another mixed bag across the Prairie provinces. Similar 19th-century settlement patterns to the US mid-West and Great Plains states (agricultural south, rocky/always sparsely populated north), but radically different municipal arrangements: geographically large (even by Canadian standards) "rural municipalities" in Manitoba and Alberta (a lot of them called "counties" in the latter case) with Saskatchewan sandwiched in between - with incredibly large numbers of geographically small, low population/low density municipalities without any concentrated population centres at all plus a veritable archipelago of tiny "villages" and "towns" that were long ago (before agricultural mechanization) carved out of the now very sparsely populated agricultural municipalities that typically bear the same names. Lastly, there's British Columbia. Despite the name, no "counties" here, but a LOT of very sparsely populated mountainous terrain with occasional strips of more densely populated river valleys. "Regional municipalities" help achieve whatever economies of scale you can achieve over such terrain while the mostly very urban and coastal population of the province mostly lives in a US-style mish-mash of multiple urban and suburban municipalities. And don't get me started on Australia...! Bottom line: there are MANY different models of municipal organization across the world (even among mostly English-speaking federal countries) - and what municipal units are CALLED often has precious little to do with the functions they actually perform today (as opposed to those they may once have performed in pre-industrial/pre-urbanization eras.

[@hulluporo9067]

What puzzles me is the big difference in terms of population. There's LA County with almost 10 million people and there's one county in Texas with less than 100 folks. It's also odd that there are cities which belong to four different counties. I'm from Germany and in my state, all counties or county-free cities have at least 100k inhabitants.

[@ClementsDan04]

You must be thinking of Loving County, which had a population of 64 as of the 2020 Census. On the other side of the state, Harris County (which contains most of the city of Houston) has a population of 4.7 million.

[@hulluporo9067]

@@ClementsDan04 That's right. Maybe they should merge some of these tiny counties.

[@RichardDiazWright]

I live in San Bernardino County. Most of our population lives in a rather small part of the county near Los Angeles. Most of San Bernardino County is uninhabited wilderness. There really is no logical way to split San Bernardino County into 2 counties with similar land area and population.

[@thomasrinschler6783]

Well, splitting it with similar land area and population isn't a end in itself. I've always thought that the urbanized areas of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties should let the rest of those counties go, which would create two new counties centered around Barstow and Palm Springs (or they could just combine the more sparsely-populated areas into one county). Los Angeles County could definitely let the area north of the mountains split off and create a new county around Lancaster/Palmdale as well. Even though it's not splitting the counties evenly by population or area, it would at least result in more logical units geographically. Of course, I live in Phoenix, and Arizona isn't any better. Maricopa County, where Phoenix is, is ridiculously sprawling and could definitely be split up into two or three.

[@RichardDiazWright]

I don't really know how the smaller communities will feel about that. People rely on the San Bernardino County government for a lot of things and the people in those remote areas may lose social services they rely on if the county was to be split.

[@roberttilden3547]

The most important factor is precipitation. The 100th meridian is the devide you show, In Texas for every 10 miles you move west you lose one inch of rain per year. In places like Iowa and Missouri each county was subdivided into townships, each township had a school. A township these days is 6 miles by 6 miles, or 36 square miles. When most everyone lived on farms this was the way you teamed up with your naighbors for organization. When you move west and cannot farm this does not work and the units have to get bigger.

[@dai-nippon_digger]

I live in Hawaii. The counties are based basically on geography. Big islands become their own counties and little islands get bunched up into one big county.

[@Pokemanmon]

I actually had this sci-fi project I was working on where I had to look into counties of states, and I did it in alphabetically order, so I started with Alabama, which had 57, then I moved on to Arizona, which had 14, not only that, but one county was significantly larger than the rest of Arizona.

[@baystated]

Our counties in Massachusetts have diminished in importance since their colonial origins. As town and city governments matured, counties are now merely just districts for regional courts and prisons.

[@General.Knowledge]

That's a pretty interesting way to look at it, the relative importance of county lines and how that must differ between states.

[@nlpnt]

FWIU they have more functions on Cape Cod and in Western Mass, which is to say the further you get from Boston.

[@maxpowr90]

@@General.Knowledge Fun fact: My county, Norfolk County, is the only one with two exclaves over land. Brookline, MA (one of said exclaves) was ground zero for NIMBYism in the US; which explains Boston's awkward shape.

[@craigrohn9938]

New England's local governance is centered around the town. New England is also unique in that all of the territory is divided into towns; there is no unincorporated land in New England, except for areas of sparesly-populated northern New England. These towns for the most part provide services that in other states are provided by counties, and as a result counties are for the most part nothing more than lines on a map in most of New England. On the other hand, Maryland concentrates almost all of its responsibility into county government, to the point that there is no advantage for a population center to incorporate into a city, the county provides all services (police, fire, even education, which in most other states outside the South are run by purpose formed school districts which may or may not be independent of any other governmental body.

[@lukeporras1288]

@@craigrohn9938 And according to David Hackett Fischer in the book Albion’s Seed, the colonial Puritans who founded New England tended to be averse to royal-sounding authorities such as sheriffs and other county officials, and so they tended to avoid giving much power to these, whereas in the Cavalier South, authority was centered more in county governments than in town/city governments.

[@TigerDominic-uh1dv]

Very Interesting

[@kajunsblerdeye9325]

I'm from South Carolina we learned how many counties in the third grade. I can always spot it on the map. Williamsburg County

[@carolinian2009]

He seems to have lost Pickens and Charleston Counties in his map, somehow.

[@gosnooky]

My grandmother was from Ohio, and she would always tell us stories on how life was different back in the 1920's, and how Ohio had 88 counties. It was the first permanent nugget of useless information I ever acquired.

[@NW255]

I agree with the criteria 100% but that doesn’t always mean there aren’t exceptions. In Michigan for example our state capital is the largest city in Igham County but the county seat is in Mason probably to split the power of government so that one city doesn’t have all the power. In most cases the largest city in the county is the seat but I think there can be instances of splitting the power between different cities depending on the situation.

[@Draktand01]

I haven’t watched it yet so I’ll give it a guess: Population density. Here in Sweden, municipalities in Norrland (northern Sweden) tend to be pretty huge in comparison to the rest of the country, simply due to the low population. If the population is too small, it becomes too difficult for the people living in them to govern themselves. Now, I realise that US counties are a sort of hybrid between first order municipalities (cities, towns, villages, and the likes, and well, minicipalities), and second order municipalities (regions, counties, ect). In areas outside of a city or something simular, US counties are essentially the lowest level of government, so there’s still a need for a minimum population for self governance. Then there’s probably some legislative diffrences for states with slightly bigger counties that are surrounded by states with smaller ones.

[@escmadeira]

Good video

[@craigrohn9938]

The pace of county formation slowed dramatically once the automobile became common near the turn of the 20th century. It no longer took more than a day to get to the county seat of the largest county. Recent counties have formed for mostly political reasons or to take advantage of a perceived interest. Broomfield County, Colorado was formed primarily because the town of Broomfield straddled four separate Colorado counties, complicating administration. Another issue during the 19th century and the formation of counties as the territory became settled was the competition between towns to be the county seat. Sometimes this competition would become violent. In Michigan, the towns of Cadillac and Manton fought a small war over who whould be the county seat of Wexford County. Cadillac won and today has over 10K in population, while Manton is a small fraction of that.

[@stevejohnson3357]

Where I live in Canada counties were set up but I don't think there are any provinces where they are used for local administration across the province. In BC all that is left is the land registry. I think there are 8 or 9. But they were drawn before many colonists had settled. We use regional districts for local government with more rational boundaries.

[@beatlesdork1274]

The first A in Nevada sounds like Vatican or Apple. Love the channel!

[@drumcorpsfan3991]

3:13 That's my hometown of Madison Wisconsin!

[@allanrichardson1468]

In the case of the middle tier of plains states (and parts of MN, IA, WI, and MI), an additional factor is that, thanks partly to the Homestead Act of 1861, the growth in population was agricultural, with large homesteaded farms (rather than subdivided plantations as in the East), before urban dwellers. So these states should have had larger counties like those further west. But the railroads had to have watering stations every “x” miles, which required workers to staff them, drill the wells to get the water, a village to support them, etc. Hence many evenly spaced small towns. And the Homestead Act’s surveying method thus called for dividing the mostly flat land into square “townships” of 36 square miles, 6 miles on a side, with each farmer able to claim one or more squares of land. Thus, the small county size model, with mostly square counties, was imposed on these states even before they became (sparsely, since single families would live on large tracts of land) populated. Were it not for this, the middle states would have been more like the Western states in county size.

[@danieljackett4193]

And the usual county size was 4 townships by 4 townships

[@SantaFe19484]

Nice to see the Pennsylvania state capital at 4:58, my home state.

[@dpfitforlife81]

That was very interesting. But I would also add that some of those counties in the west are very odd shaped as well.

[@AlexeiLjanej]

3:49 In Virginia we call it the (Apple-Ach-Ann) or the (Apple-Achee-Ann) mountains

[@fiddlejohn9305]

And in Nevada natives don’t pronounce it Nuh VAW duh, instead Nuh VAD uh.

[@romad357]

In the West, there are very large areas of the states that are Federal owned land and thus not available for population. Regarding San Bernardino County, there have been several attempts to divide it with the northern part becoming a separate county. However, the more populous southern section wants to keep the north in bondage to them.

[@alabamaal225]

One aspect of counties was that in the bicameral legislatures of a few states representatives of the state senate were appointed one per county, regardless of population. As an example, during 1960 in the Alabama state senate, rural Cleburne County (population about 10,800) had the same representation as urban Jefferson County (population about 629,200, about 58 times larger by inhabitants). This situation was struck down in 1964 by the U.S. Supreme Court case "Reynolds v. Sims", 377 U.S. 533 (1964) which ruled electoral districts of state legislative chambers must be approximately equal in population; one of the landmark "one person-one vote" rulings. As one commentator remarked at the time, "Trees don't need representation, people do." The Alabama state senate was reduced to 35 seats; the state senate districts now extend beyond county lines.

[@mantistoboggan265]

The size variation between some of New England's states and most other states is also crazy. Rhode Island is smaller in population and area than Palm Beach County, just one of 67 counties in Florida. Delaware is a little bit bigger than Rhode Island but has fewer counties than any other state (except Louisiana and Alaska, which have parishes and boroughs instead of counties), with only 3 of them, while Texas has the most at 254.

[@HoennMaster]

How each state divides itself it counties has always somewhat intrigued me. I grew up in Minnesota. Minnesota is bigger in both size and population than our neighbor Iowa and yet Iowa has 12 more counties than us. Iowa has more counties than Wisconsin too even though Wisconsin has a bigger population as well and it has almost as many as Illinois even though Illinois blows it out of the water in population

[@KC-Mitch]

Counties were always designed to be a size where the average citizen could take a horse down to the county courthouse (almost _always_ in the middle of the county, especially in the midwest) and back home within a day. Generally, this was for voting purposes. Like today, voting in many states are designated by the county. I live in Missouri and the counties are in charge of ballot creation for the various voter precincts throughout. Originally, however, voting was historically done at the courthouse by a _voice vote_ - hence why it was held in the center of the county. As voting evolved, along with technology, the need to have counties of a certain size was unnecessary. You'll also notice that there's a near line where counties change size and it has to do with farming. Going back to the county point I mentioned, barring minor hills, most of the Midwest is flat meaning people were spread throughout farming. But once you get close to the Rockies and the deserts of the Southwest, there's just no need for farming, so people usually lived in concentrated settlements near rivers, as half the population wasn't distributed evenly over 1000 mi^2

[@allanrichardson1468]

Historical accidents can also have an effect. At one time, for example, the governor of Georgia was selected by an Electoral College type system, with each county having one vote. So, after a new governor was elected, he would try to split the counties that supported him into two or more counties, to get more votes the next time. In Florida, Hillsborough County (Tampa) originally included the area to its west, across Tampa Bay. But the citizens in that area felt they were not being served by the government in Tampa (especially since there were no bridges across the bay yet), so they got the state to split them off into their own Pinellas County (Clearwater as county seat, but St. Petersburg in the south is better known to outsiders). Today the only land border between the counties is in Oldsmar, a town at the northern tip of the bay ( founded and named by Ransom Olds, first owner of the Oldsmobile auto brand).

[@Bawiix]

Splendid

[@General.Knowledge]

Thanks!

[@gregbard]

Connecticut abolished county government in 1960. They exist today as informal cultural designations only. Just like "New England" itself.

[@pr0cr4st1na7or]

As far as San Bernardino County goes, the majority of its population is concentrated in the south-west, where the city of San Bernardino and its surrounding cities join the greater Los Angeles-San-Bernardino-Riverside conurbation. Most of the rest of its territory is still sparsely populated desert and mountain regions, so subdividing it wouldn't make much sense. Also, I can't speak to the specific "one horse ride round trip in a day" distance, but the concept isn't new, and it goes in both directions. If the government wishes to exert control over a region (e.g. law enforcement, taxation, etc.), it has to place its administrators and enforcers close enough that they can't be ignored. As pointed out in the video, this also applies to representative governments that must be accessible to the people they represent. Improvements in transportation and communication when much of the western states were formally established therefore would have also contributed to relative county sizes.

[@LukeXD_60]

Fun Fact: Louisiana doesn’t have counties it has parishes

[@GDUCKY.]

Thank you I live in. The proudly most country state and someone finally knows that it is parishes

[@sonyatheforestgaurdian3152]

One thing to consider is date the state was admitted to the Union and the technology available at the time. Take Delaware and it's 3 Counties. Delaware was one of the first States to be admitted into the US. Delaware had the communication technology 1776 when it was admitted. Now compare that to Alaska where are some counties are in the size of entire States. Alaska was admitted in the 1950s and with the communication technology of the 1950s. Generally state and county size depends on the time created and technology available at that time.

[@jds1275]

How did you decide which counties to put in the Big county list and highlight yellow and which not to. Obviously, there are many small counties but what were the minimum size requirements to be labeled a big county.

[@ChrisFan890]

Let's get him to million subs!

[@Jarmint]

Robux

[@General.Knowledge]

The current subscriber growth rate points to that taking a couple of years! Let's see how it goes.

[@withlessAsbestos]

0:55 why’d my man take Pickens and Charleston County off of SC?

[@mammajamma4397]

Anybody ever thought to make a Superman-type logo from the borders of South Carolina? I could see people from there liking it.

[@plrc4593]

3:32 - what's the difference between size and area of a county? Does "size" mean population here?

[@ClementsDan04]

Bullfrog County was created around Yucca Mountain, a proposed nuclear waste disposal site. By being its own county but having zero population, any property tax or federal grants that would otherwise have gone to the surrounding county (Nye) would instead go directly to the state government.

[@NY-DC-LA]

I suspect that the state of technology/travel at the time territories were subdivided had a lot to do with the size of counties. (Also, Eastern states are generally much smaller, geographically, than those in the West). I grew up in the county/borough of Queens in NYC. Queens is the largest of the 5 boroughs/counties, both geographically and (now) by population. I live in LA county, which is geographically larger than Rhode Island, Delaware, and the District of Columbia combined, and has a population larger than each of 40 states. LA county originally stretched to Nevada, but, with growth, it was partitioned: San Bernardino, Kern, and Orange Counties, and parts of Riverside, Inyo, Tulare, and Ventura Counties. I suppose that the odd borders of the City of Los Angeles, and that the bulk of the 10M of us reside in the western part of LA County makes further subdivision due to population impractical. Finally, it's a bit peculiar to me that Catalina and San Clemente islands are part of LA and not part of Orange or San Diego counties.

[@tedgemberling2359]

I think your reasons are right. I live in Jefferson County, Alabama, but I'm from Washington State. Jefferson County, Washington is way bigger. It's kind of an odd county, because it straddles the Olympic Mountains, so there's no road that goes all the way through it. You have to drive all the way around it to get from one side to the other.

[@reidarkelstrup]

The part of Jefferson County, WA that’s west of the Olympics used to be a different county. Back in the day it was Quileute county, but hardly anybody lived out there and Jefferson and Clallam counties both wanted those logging bucks, so Quileute got axed.

[@Crycpycraps]

In the eastern half of the Us, there’s really not very many places where you feel very far away from society, even in rural areas there’s not very many places where you’re more than like 20 minutes away from the nearest town or at least like gas station or farm or something. West of Kansas, the towns get farther and farther apart even small things like farms start to disappear, if western states had counties the size of east states, they would have so many counties with like no residents

[@yuehaowu]

It looks like they really did try to make the counties look unique and proper at the east coast but than slowly realized how much more they had to go and just gave up on making it look good Like when you’re making a map

[@mklapper88]

That horse-based reason for more counties jibes with my understanding of DC. Originally it was 10 miles by 10 miles. Why ten miles? Because that is roughly the distance a horse would travel before needing rest

[@poilus]

That actually makes sense

[@mikehart5619]

Then there is the odd man out, Lousiana. It doesn't have any county but has parishes instead. My college history professor told us that early on, it had both but the parish administrative system won out. How exactly, I don't know.

[@jimgreen5788]

In answer to your question, yes, I think it makes a lot of sense.

[@General.Knowledge]

I agree!

[@brookstallings6307]

I love your videos. There's a couple of other factors involved that you could have mentioned. First, some of these counties have only a few thousand people, a few less than one thousand. Counties in western states have a county seat, a court system, executive, law enforcement, social programs, and other governmental functions. There is a point at which there aren't enough people (or tax base) to support all of these functions, so it's not practical to divide the counties further. Second (as you know), several western states have the majority of their land owned by the federal government, so the size of the territory actually administered by a county may not be nearly as large as it looks on a map.

[@gerardbryant1445]

It would be interesting to compare the tribal ranges of the native tribes to the county sizes. Did the tribes in the Western areas have a larger area because resources were scarcer? The same size differences occur between inland and coastal shires in Australia. The inland shires cover massive areas, with very small populations, compared to the coastal shires.

[@jeffreyanderson1851]

An additional note. A car can travel a much further daily round trip to a county seat than a horse.

[@The1Senate]

Most of the Western States have Federal land and those large counties are sparsely populated making it a factor plus new counties can be formed or absorbed accordingly as a sort of community secession from the previous county it happens occasionally but was very common in the past

[@rob2557]

I think the criteria needed the scenario of safety, most counties are small back east because of safety in numbers, especially with native Americans raids and/or foreigners

[@TappanZee1234]

Ability to earn a living, not just mountainous or arid, is also why western counties have low population vs size. In Nevada, Clark and Washoe counties contain 2/3 of the states population because of the mining and gaming industries in and around Las Vegas and Reno.

[@SogMosee]

anyway I can download these maps?

[@GARUMODEL]

Not trying to be a nerd or anything but Nevada actually has 16 counties. Carson city is its own independent city not within any county

[@UnkillableMrStake]

There are definitely counties in the southwest that are small that have almost no people in them. Colloquially referred to as empty counties. I think they fice the opposite problem of San Bernardino where they should be combined with some others around them to create a reasonably sized county for its population density. I think this problem is most prevalent in texas

[@dennisenright9347]

It might have something to do with the European tendency to but the national capital in the country's biggest city and the American rejection of that (It would be interesting to know if you have any ideas as to why the four countries Britain founded all rejected putting the national capital in the largest city. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the US didn't do that, and in North America, even the 70 % of the states and half the provinces of Canada rejected that. The US at its founding, seemed to want political power to be as local as possible to avoid the European tendency toward centralized authority

[@General.Knowledge]

Interesting idea! That makes a lot of sense.

[@allanrichardson1468]

This generally happened in Europe because the city where the King lived generally grew into the largest city, BECAUSE the King was there. In the US, however (and notably, Brazil), there was a tendency to locate capital cities deliberately, and also, even if the capital was the largest city, other cities outgrew it. In Florida, the largest (almost the only) cities when it became a state in 1845 were Pensacola, on the Gulf coast near the Alabama line, and Jacksonville (and nearby St. Augustine) at about the same latitude (30 degrees N), near the Georgia line and the Atlantic Ocean. So they surveyed a line between them and split it in half, building Tallahassee on that site. Today, it is about the worst location for a state capital in terms of access to the population, but nobody will consent to moving the capital to Orlando (which would make the state government even MORE of a Mickey Mouse operation).

[@joshb.1118]

Yeah, but we also have extremely populous counties. The county were I live, Orange County, has 3.19M and is relatively small land area. The county were I was born, Pacific County WA, has about the same land mass but only 23.4k people.

[@ferretyluv]

I live in a very populated county with 1mil+ people. It’s the size of Rhode Island. And yet Rhode Island has 5 counties, some of which have a population as small as 50k.

[@ch44227]

Also by the time those western states joined, the train existed. Which would provide a much faster trip to county seat than horseback.

[@CJColvin]

St.Louis County in Missouri has 97 cities while Jackson County in Missouri has 18 Cities ( including Kansas City Missouri aka Missouri's largest city).

[@JOGA_Wills]

I live in AZ in Maricopa County, which is bigger than some states in the east coast

[@RichardDiazWright]

I live in San Bernardino County, California. We are the largest county in the USA if you don't count the boroughs of Alaska.

[@gosnooky]

Yeah, Arizona really should redraw its counties to reflect the booming population, but as was alluded to in another comment, politics make this nearly impossible to accomplish.

[@terreniskelley7191]

I love any mention of how empty Nevada is. I grew up in Mineral County, 6000 people when i left 25 years ago, now its about 4000. It used to be part of Esmerelda County. I have no other input than to mention that I love when my "big little" county is mentioned in a KZbin video lol.

[@rob2557]

Personally I'm for counties to merge to become one big county, especially in the Eastern, maybe central US, it could make for better economics, infrastructure, safety and politics and way of life

[@johnmillholland6550]

3:12 my hometown!

[@General.Knowledge]

Cool!

[@gosnooky]

Madison!

[@chinninaveen000]

Is there any popular beaches in eastern American states excluding Florida.

[@MarijnRoorda]

What i wonder about, will the US of A start merging counties? Most people drive cars instead of horses, and it would save quite a few expenses, not to mention elections.

[@General.Knowledge]

I would take a bet on yes. Borders tend to be adjusted over time as their initial reasons fade away.

[@richdobbs6595]

@@General.Knowledge I'll take that bet. There is no movement in that direction. North and South Dakato will never merge because they would lose power in the Senate and in presidential election. Colorado still has counties that were created from boom towns in its Silver Rush. Even if it would save a bit of money, enough locals and politicians would lose out politically so they don't support it.

[@thomasrinschler6783]

Not unless a county becomes totally depopulated. Loving County TX has a total population of 64, and even with that ridiculously low number of residents, there's been no call to abolish it and merge it with neighboring counties.

[@EthanNeal]

It's happened before, but it's pretty rare all things considered. Campbell and Milton Counties in Georgia defaulted on debts and were absorbed by Fulton County in 1961, bringing Georgia down to its current 159 counties (a lot even for an eastern state). I don't think county mergers are anything we'll see much of, it's more likely we'll see more of what New England states are doing in absorbing powers from counties up to the state governments. Since they're small, well populated states, they can do that pretty easily, but larger and less populated states might find that much harder

[@FATillery]

It is odd that a country this size would have the majority of its' land controlled by small counties. Of course, the development of counties started in the east and as settlers migrated westward they might have decided on bigger counties because the population densities at that time decreased as they went westward. Remember, out east, the cities had growing populations from migrants and business was growing rapidly in the cities. While out west, it was mostly rural.

[@markbollinger1343]

People have ranches out west the size of counties back east.

[@chris-parker]

Alaska, when it comes to "counties, ": "We dont do that here." Boroughs/census areas are the best we will offer.

[@joedellinger9437]

I still would like to know how Loving county, Texas, happened… and remains…

[@marygrebinski4568]

When I looked at the thumbnail, I thought USA turned into Vatican City 💀💀💀

[@mazdaman2315]

I live in the largest county east of the Mississippi outside of Maine