Kent County, Delaware

Kent County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

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Etymology - Origin of County Name

Kent was named in 1682 by William Penn for the English county of Kent.

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History

Kent County is one of three counties in the small state of Delaware (only Rhode Island is smaller). In about 1670 Englishmen began to settle in the valley of the St. Jones river formally known as Wolf Creek.

Originally part of the Hoornkill district court established by the Dutch Governor Colve in 1673. Hoornkill was divided into Saint Jones County and Deal County in 1680.

William Penn chartered Kent County as the Successor to St. Jones. Penn ordered a court town to be layed out, and the courthouse was built in 1697. The town of Dover was finally layed out in 1717, and became the capitol of Delaware in 1777. In 1787 Delaware was first to ratify the U.S. Constitution, and became "the First State." Kent County was a small grain farming region in the 18th Century.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 800 square miles (2,072 km²), of which, 590 square miles (1,527 km²) of it is land and 210 square miles (545 km²) of it (26.30%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

New Castle County, Delaware - north
Salem County, New Jersey - northeast
Cumberland County, New Jersey - east
Cape May County, New Jersey - east
Sussex County, Delaware - south
Caroline County, Maryland - southwest
Queen Anne's County, Maryland - west
Kent County, Maryland - west
Delaware Bay; no land border

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County Resource Guide

Counties: US Map

The history of our nation can be seen as a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names we've given our counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of our country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."

Penn Foster High School

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