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Pennsylvania Counties
![]() Click Image to Enlarge Pennsylvania CountiesThere are sixty-seven counties of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the United States of America. The city of Philadelphia is coterminous with Philadelphia County, and governmental functions have been consolidated since 1854. |
Pennsylvania CountiesPennsylvania's 67 counties were formed between 1682 when William Penn divided the lands granted to him by King Charles II of England into the three original counties of Philadelphia, Bucks and Chester and 1878 when Lackawanna County, the youngest county, was created. The other 63 counties were formed by special or local acts. These acts were passed by the Provincial Assembly while Pennsylvania was a colony and by the General Assembly from 1775, when Pennsylvania became a Commonwealth, until 1874. Since the State Constitution of 1874 prohibited the passage of special or local legislation, Lackawanna County, the only remaining county to be created, was formed by decree of court under the authority of a general law (P. L. 17 of 1878.
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County Resources
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The history of our nation was a prolonged struggle to define
the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local.
And the names given the counties, our most locally based jurisdictions,
reflects the "characteristic features of this 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." |