I’m from the Philippines and we divide things differently here. The country is divided into provinces, which are divided into cities/municipalities, which are divided into barangays.
So I looked at a map of Washington and saw that Seattle is not its own county, but is a part of a county. So are states in the USA divided into counties, which are then divided into towns and cities?
In: Other
A state is divided into counties or parishes, these operate as a sub-level of the state government.
For instance, states are responsible for running elections, but each county has its own election officers. For purposes of analogy, you can think of a county as being a specific location of a chain restaurant with the state being the corporate office.
Towns and cities (villages, etc) are autonomous but subject to county/state. They govern themselves, but can’t exceed explicit limits set by a state. For instance, a town can set its own local taxes and run its own schools, but can’t issue their own government-official ID because IDs are a state function.
It can get pretty complicated, and some states have “townships” which are a sub-set of county offices (but are not towns). And some developed areas are not part of any town or village, but are “unincorporated” and are managed by the county.
I think that covers it at a simple level.
Note: a state is like a country in many ways, except that states can’t issue their own money or engage in international activity unilaterally. Beyond that the states are all autonomous for internal matters or for engagement with other states as long as those engagements and local laws don’t exceed federally defined limits or get politicians voted out of office.
Latest Answers