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Virginia Counties

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Virginia Counties

The Commonwealth of Virginia is divided into 95 counties and 39 independent cities, which are considered county-equivalents for census purposes.

Fairfax County, Virginia

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

County Seat: Fairfax
Year Organized: 1742
Square Miles: 396

Court House:

12000 Government Center Parkway
County Government Center
Fairfax, VA 22035-0066

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Fairfax is named for Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Fairfax County, Virginia formed from Prince William and Loudoun Counties. Loudoun gave only a small portions, possibly at a later date. It appears that there were further boundary changes ongoing between 1845 and 1847. [Virginia Counties: Those Resulting from Virginia Legislation, by Morgan Poitiaux Robinson, originally published as Bulletin of the Virginia State Library, Volume 9, January, April, July 1916, reprinted 1992 by Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, MD.]

Fairfax County was named for Thomas Fairfax, sixth baron Fairfax of Cameron, proprietor of the Northern Neck. It was formed from Prince William County in 1742. Its area is 410 square miles, and the county seat is Fairfax. According to the 2000 census, its population is 969,749. Original wills and deeds as well as many other loose papers were destroyed during the Civil War; deed books for twenty-six of the fifty-six years between 1763 and 1819 are missing.

Neighboring Counties:

Fairfax County is bounded on the north and southeast by the Potomac River. Across the river to the northeast is Washington, D.C., across the river to the north is Montgomery County, Maryland, and across the river to the southeast are Prince George's County, Maryland and Charles County, Maryland. The county is partially bounded on the north and east by Arlington County and the independent cities of Alexandria and Falls Church. It is bounded on the west by Loudoun County, and on the south by Prince William County.

Cities and Towns:

- Alexandria	city	Incorporated Area
- Clifton	town	Incorporated Area
- Fairfax (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Falls Church	city	Incorporated Area
- Herndon	town	Incorporated Area
- Vienna	town	Incorporated Area

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resources

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."