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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.

Orange County, Virginia

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

County Seat: Orange
Year Organized: 1734
Square Miles: 342

Court House:

P.O. Box 111
County Administrator's Office
Orange, VA 22960-0800

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Orange County: Orange is named for William III of England, aka William of Orange.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Orange County, Virginia formed from Spotsylvania County. [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.]

Orange County, according to most accounts, was named for William of Orange, the Dutch prince who became William III of England in 1688. It is more probable, however, that the name honored William IV, prince of Orange-Nassau, who married Anne, eldest daughter of George II, in 1734--the year Orange County was formed from Spotsylvania County. Its area is 355 square miles, and the county seat is Orange.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 343 square miles (889 km²), of which, 342 square miles (885 km²) of it is land and 2 square miles (4 km²) of it (0.50%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Albemarle County, VA to the southwest
Culpeper County, VA to the north
Greene County, VA to the west
Louisa County, VA to the south
Madison County, VA to the north
Spotsylvania County, VA to the east

Cities and Towns:

- Gordonsville	town	Incorporated Area
- Orange (County Seat)	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."