Norfolk County, Massachusetts

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

County Seat: Dedham
Year Organized: 1793
Square Miles: 400

Court House:

614 High Street
County Administration Building
Dedham, MA 02026-1897

Etymology - Origin of County Name

For the English county of Norfolk

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History

Norfolk County consists of twenty-eight eastern Massachusetts communities, mostly located to the South and West of Boston. The County was incorporated as a regional governmental entity in 1793, and has its county seat at the town of Dedham.

The county is not fully contiguous; the towns of Brookline and Cohasset are each part of Norfolk County but are separated from the majority of Norfolk County (and each other) by either water or other counties. At the county's formation, Hingham and Hull were to be part of it, but joined Plymouth County instead, leaving Cohasset as an enclave of Norfolk County. Brookline became an exclave of Norfolk County in 1873 when the neighboring town of West Roxbury was annexed by Boston (thus leaving Norfolk County to join Suffolk County) and Brookline refused to be annexed by Boston after the Brookline-Boston annexation debate of 1873.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 444 square miles (1,150 km²), of which, 400 square miles (1,035 km²) of it is land and 44 square miles (115 km²) of it (10%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Northeast: Suffolk County; North Atlantic Ocean
Southeast: Plymouth County
South: Bristol County
Southwest: Providence County, R.I.
Northwest: Worcester County; Middlesex County

Cities and Towns:

- Avon	town
- Bellingham	town
- Braintree	town
- Brookline	town
- Canton	town
- Cohasset	town
- Dedham (County Seat)	town
- Dover	town
- Foxborough	town
- Franklin	city	Incorporated Area
- Holbrook	town
- Medfield	town
- Medway	town
- Millis	town
- Milton	town
- Needham	town
- Norfolk	town
- Norwood	town
- Plainville	town
- Quincy	city	Incorporated Area
- Randolph	town
- Sharon	town
- Stoughton	town
- Walpole	town
- Wellesley	town
- Westwood	town
- Weymouth	town
- Wrentham	town

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

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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