How do counties in the USA work?

Question

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

Answer 1

Yup you got it. There can be multiple cities/towns within a single county. Some cities sit where they are in 2 counties, maybe more but I’m not aware of any

ETA: counties also consist of land between cities and towns. Some with more unpopulated land than populated