List of counties in Connecticut

There are eight counties in the U.S. state of Connecticut.

Counties of Connecticut
LocationState of Connecticut
Number8
Populations118,428 (Windham) – 916,829 (Fairfield)
Areas369 square miles (960 km2) (Middlesex) – 920 square miles (2,400 km2) (Litchfield)
GovernmentCounty government (abolished in 1960, except for County Sheriffs, which were abolished by an act of the state legislature effective in 2000)
Subdivisionscities, towns, unincorporated communities, census designated place
Map of the counties of colonial Connecticut, 1766.

Four of the counties – Fairfield, Hartford, New Haven and New London – were created in 1666, shortly after the Connecticut Colony and the New Haven Colony combined. Windham and Litchfield Counties were created later in the colonial era, while Middlesex and Tolland Counties were created after American independence (both in 1785). Six of the counties are named for locations in England, where many early Connecticut settlers originated.[1]

Although Connecticut is divided into counties, there is no county government in Connecticut, and local government consists solely on the municipality level.[2] Almost all functions of county government were abolished in Connecticut in 1960, except for elected County Sheriffs and their departments under them. Those offices and their departments were abolished by an act of the state legislature effective in December of 2000. The functions the County Sheriffs' Departments played were assumed by the newly organized State Marshal Commission and the state Department of Corrections.[3]

Connecticut's legacy county names remain for geographical purposes. Geographic boundaries of the former counties are still used by the state to organize its judicial and state marshal system. Connecticut's court jurisdictions still adhere to the county boundaries, and Fairfield, Hartford and New Haven Counties have been further subdivided into several smaller jurisdictions.

The FIPS county code is the five-digit Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) code which uniquely identifies counties and county equivalents in the United States. The three-digit number is unique to each individual county within a state, but to be unique within the entire United States, it must be prefixed by the state code. This means that, for example, while Fairfield County, Connecticut is 001, Belknap County, New Hampshire and Alachua County, Florida are also 001. To uniquely identify Fairfield County, Connecticut, one must use the state code of 09 plus the county code of 001; therefore, the unique nationwide identifier for Fairfield County, Connecticut is 09001. The links in the column FIPS county code are to the Census Bureau Info page for that county.[4]

Alphabetical listing
County
 FIPS code[4] County seat[lower-alpha 1][6] Est.[6] Origin[1] Etymology[7] Population[6][8] Area[6] Map
Fairfield County 001 Bridgeport1666original countyFrom the hundreds of acres of salt marsh that bordered the coast. 916,829 626 sq mi
(1,621 km2)
Hartford County 003 Hartford1666original countyAfter the county of Hertfordshire in the UK 894,014 736 sq mi
(1,906 km2)
Litchfield County 005 Litchfield1751From parts of Fairfield, Hartford and New Haven CountiesCity of Lichfield in the UK 189,927 920 sq mi
(2,383 km2)
Middlesex County 007 Middletown1785From parts of Hartford and New London CountiesFormer county of Middlesex in the UK 165,676 369 sq mi
(956 km2)
New Haven County 009 New Haven1666original countyAfter New Haven Colony, founded as a haven in which Puritans could be free from persecution. 862,477 606 sq mi
(1,570 km2)
New London County 011 New London1666original countyAfter London, UK 274,055 666 sq mi
(1,725 km2)
Tolland County 013 Rockville1785From parts of Hartford and Windham CountiesHamlet of Tolland, Somerset, UK 152,691 410 sq mi
(1,062 km2)
Windham County 015 Willimantic and Putnam1726From parts of Hartford and New London CountiesAfter Windham (now Wineham) in Sussex, England 118,428 513 sq mi
(1,329 km2)

Former counties

Notes
  1. Officially, Connecticut has no county seats.[5] The listed communities are instead historical county seats.

References
  1. Clark, George Larkin (1914). A History of Connecticut: Its People and Institutions. G. P. Putnam's Sons. p. 1. a history of connecticut.
  2. An Overview of County Government Archived July 8, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, National Association of Counties website, accessed January 5, 2008
  3. http://www.jud.ct.gov/faq/marshals.htm
  4. "EPA County FIPS Code Listing". EPA.gov. Archived from the original on October 7, 2012. Retrieved February 23, 2008.
  5. "Connecticut State Register and Manual, Section VI: Counties". Connecticut Official State Website (Office of Secretary of State).
  6. National Association of Counties. "NACo – Find a county". Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved April 30, 2008.
  7. Beatty, Michael (2001). County Name Origins of the United States. McFarland Press. ISBN 0-7864-1025-6.
  8. "Connecticut QuickFacts". U.S. Census Bureau. Archived from the original on December 4, 2013. Retrieved July 17, 2007.

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