Counties with only one incorporated city

[dvferyance]

In Wisconsin Florence and Menomonie Counties have no incorporated cites or villages. Not sure which ones only have one.

[wxfree]

Texas mostly has relatively small counties compared with other large states, so there are a lot of them.  The list of counties with one city is long.  I'll give a list of counties that qualify for the topic, but a subset: counties that have only one city that is not the county seat.  (My theory is that in some cases the county seat is taken care of by the county government while a far-flung community feels ignored and incorporates so they can take care of themselves.)

Palo Pinto County contains most of the city of Mineral Wells, and the county seat is the unincorporated Palo Pinto  (this is two counties west of Fort Worth's Tarrant County, so it isn't exclusively a far-west phenomenon.)
Hudspeth County: Dell City, county seat Sierra Blanca
Jeff Davis County: Valentine, county seat Fort Davis

Another interesting example, but outside the scope of this topic, is Bowie County, which has multiple incorporated cities while the county seat is an unincorporated place that no longer exists.  The county seat is Boston, the location of which has been annexed into the city of New Boston.  The only way to move a county seat is by election, and that hasn't been done.  New Boston is the de facto county seat, with the new courthouse being well away from the former location of Boston.  In my view, the courthouse should within the old town site unless an election changes the county seat, because I like for things to be technically correct, but it doesn't seem to bother anyone else.

For the "no cities" list, we have Loving, Terrell, Crockett, Kenedy, Jim Hogg, and King.  An interesting example is Borden County, the seat of which is the unincorporated town of Gail.  The county and county seat are named after Gail Borden, who invented condensed milk and and started the Borden dairy company.  He lived in the region of Houston for most of his life and plotted the town sites of Houston and Galveston.  The town and county named after him are in an area of the state he never went to.

Again, another interesting example outside the scope of this topic is Jones County, the seat of which is Anson.  They're both named after Anson Jones, who was the last president of Texas.  I'm not aware of any other first name - last name county and seat combinations.

[SP Cook]

Leaving out the nitpick between "city" "town" and "village", in West Virginia it used to be really easy to become an incorporated place so the state is flush with towns that are little more than a small collection of houses, often providing no services.  None the less there are 7 counties with only one, in all cases the county seat.

Calhoun (Grantsville)
Clay (Clay)
Doddridge (West Union)
Pendleton (Franklin)
Summers (Hinton)
Upshur (Buckhannon)
Wirt (Elizabeth)

There has been talk about a Lexington, Kentucky style "urban-county" deal, most recently in Fairmont, but nothing ever comes of it.

[webny99]

Obviously in my reply above I placed more significance on the word "incorporated" than on the word "city" because of the specific way Virginia local government law works, but I think my response reflects the OP's clear intent.

My point was that in the Northeast, we cannot focus at all on "incorporated". We have to focus solely on "city", or we automatically have zero contenders. So, technically, there isn't any examples of what the OP is looking for north of Virginia.

That said, I'm sure its not a big deal if we overlook "incorporated" when discussing the Northeast 

[1995hoo]

Obviously in my reply above I placed more significance on the word "incorporated" than on the word "city" because of the specific way Virginia local government law works, but I think my response reflects the OP's clear intent.

My point was that in the Northeast, we cannot focus at all on "incorporated". We have to focus solely on "city", or we automatically have zero contenders. So, technically, there isn't any examples of what the OP is looking for north of Virginia.

That said, I'm sure its not a big deal if we overlook "incorporated" when discussing the Northeast 

Which is why my point is that you have to look more to the substance than the precise terminology used!

[Brandon]

Obviously in my reply above I placed more significance on the word "incorporated" than on the word "city" because of the specific way Virginia local government law works, but I think my response reflects the OP's clear intent.

My point was that in the Northeast, we cannot focus at all on "incorporated". We have to focus solely on "city", or we automatically have zero contenders. So, technically, there isn't any examples of what the OP is looking for north of Virginia.

That said, I'm sure its not a big deal if we overlook "incorporated" when discussing the Northeast 

However, in the rest of the country, such as here in the Midwest, incorporation does matter, and there are unincorporated areas (Hawai'i, for example, is 100% unincorporated - no municipalities).  Even the differences between "city", "village", and "town" may vary from state to state.  That's why I used the term "municipality" for my comment about Illinois.  In Illinois, a city and an incorporated town are much the same (but different from a township which is unincorporated).  The difference between a city and a village is merely governmental and has nothing to do with its relation to the county or township, nor its size.  There are small cities of a few hundred and then there are villages such as Arlington Heights, Schaumburg, and Bolingbrook, all of which have a population greater than 70,000.

[hbelkins]

Leaving out the nitpick between "city" "town" and "village", in West Virginia it used to be really easy to become an incorporated place so the state is flush with towns that are little more than a small collection of houses, often providing no services.  None the less there are 7 counties with only one, in all cases the county seat.

Calhoun (Grantsville)
Clay (Clay)
Doddridge (West Union)
Pendleton (Franklin)
Summers (Hinton)
Upshur (Buckhannon)
Wirt (Elizabeth)

I find it interesting that some of the non-county seat towns in southwestern Virginia (Man, Oceana, Gilbert, etc.) are as big as or bigger than a lot of the county seat towns in Kentucky.

There has been talk about a Lexington, Kentucky style "urban-county" deal, most recently in Fairmont, but nothing ever comes of it.

Interesting that you mention Lexington. AFAIK there was only one incorporated place in Fayette County when the city and county merged in the 1970s. When Louisville and Jefferson County merged a few years ago, several incorporated cities were not part of the merger.

[abefroman329]

Apparently, once upon a time, there was an unincorporated section of Washington, D.C.

[1995hoo]

Apparently, once upon a time, there was an unincorporated section of Washington, D.C.

Correct except that "Washington" was not always synonymous with the District of Columbia. The District used to include the City of Washington, the City of Georgetown, and the City of Alexandria, as well as Washington County and Alexandria County. Parts of the two counties were unincorporated. Georgetown and Alexandria pre-dated the District; Washington was created in 1802.

The City and County of Alexandria were famously retroceded to Virginia effective in 1847. Then in 1871 Congress consolidated Georgetown and Washington, plus the unincorporated areas of Washington County, into a single political entity under the umbrella of the District of Columbia, and then in 1895 Georgetown's streets were renamed to fit Washington's street grid, which was gradually expanding out to fill the District's borders (with one or two minor exceptions).

[abefroman329]

Apparently, once upon a time, there was an unincorporated section of Washington, D.C.

Correct except that "Washington" was not always synonymous with the District of Columbia. The District used to include the City of Washington, the City of Georgetown, and the City of Alexandria, as well as Washington County and Alexandria County. Parts of the two counties were unincorporated. Georgetown and Alexandria pre-dated the District; Washington was created in 1802.

The City and County of Alexandria were famously retroceded to Virginia effective in 1847. Then in 1871 Congress consolidated Georgetown and Washington, plus the unincorporated areas of Washington County, into a single political entity under the umbrella of the District of Columbia, and then in 1895 Georgetown's streets were renamed to fit Washington's street grid, which was gradually expanding out to fill the District's borders (with one or two minor exceptions).

Thanks, I was under the impression that there was a separate Washington County much more recently than that.

[US 89]

I'm not aware of any other first name - last name county and seat combinations.

The seat of Millard County, Utah is Fillmore. Named for Millard Fillmore, who was the president when the Utah Territory was created. Fillmore was actually the capital of the Utah Territory for the first six years, chosen because it was in a central location. The capital was moved to Salt Lake City in 1856, but the original territorial statehouse in Fillmore is still standing.

In Utah, cities and towns are both incorporated municipalities, and the only difference is that a city has more than 1000 people and a town has less. Those are distinct from townships (which are usually also CDPs), which are unincorporated communities that a county has granted some degree of self-rule to.

[Eth]

I'm not aware of any other first name - last name county and seat combinations.

The seat of Millard County, Utah is Fillmore. Named for Millard Fillmore, who was the president when the Utah Territory was created.

There is also Pike County, Georgia, county seat Zebulon. It isn't an answer to this thread's original question, though, as there are four other cities there.

[xcellntbuy]

My new home county, Baldwin County, Georgia, only has one incorporated city, Milledgeville, the State's former capital.

[Mapmikey]

In Virginia, cities are independent of counties, so we have no counties with one city. We do have incorporated towns, which are part of the surrounding counties and are more or less the equivalent of what most other states would call a city. As far as I know, the following are the counties with one town (or no towns), with the town (if any) listed in parentheses:

Albemarle County (Scottsville)
Amelia County (none)
Amherst County (none)
Arlington County (none, but the county is more like a city anyway)
Bath County (none)
Bland County (none)
Buckingham County (Dillwyn)
Charles City County (none)
Chesterfield County (none)
Craig County (New Castle)
Culpeper County (Culpeper)
Cumberland County (Farmville)
Dinwiddie County (McKenney)
Essex County (Tappahannock)
Floyd County (Floyd)
Gloucester County (none)
Goochland County (none)
Greene County (Stanardsville)
Greensville County (Jarratt)
Hanover County (Ashland)
Henrico County (none, although it's a pretty urbanized area near Richmond)
Henry County (Ridgeway)
Highland County (Monterey)
James City County (none)
King and Queen County (none)
King George County (none)
King William County (West Point)
Madison County (Madison)
Mathews County (none)
Middlesex County (Urbanna)
Nelson County (none)
New Kent County (none)
Northumberland County (Kilmarnock)
Patrick County (Stuart)
Powhatan County (none)
Prince George County (none)
Richmond County (Warsaw)
Roanoke County (Vinton)
Spotsylvania County (none)
Stafford County (none)
Warren County (Front Royal)
York County (none)

Some of these counties have their county seats in the towns; others have them in unincorporated places (York County's is in unincorporated Yorktown, for example). It's also not unusual for a county seat to be located in an adjacent independent city rather than in a town that's part of the county–for example, the Albemarle County seat is in the independent city of Charlottesville, which is surrounded by Albemarle County. Sometimes a county with no towns will be adjacent to one or more independent cities, such as Arlington County, which is adjacent to the Cities of Alexandria and Falls Church (as well as Fairfax County).

Amherst County has one (Amherst)
Rappahannock County has one (Washington)
Fluvanna has one or none depending on whether Scottsville extends into it or not.  Columbia dissolved its town status recently.
Clarke County has one (Berryville)
Buchanan County has one (Grundy)
Bedford County has one (Bedford)
Northumberland actually has none (Kilmarnock is in Lancaster County)

[roadman65]

I don't see any errors, but I wonder if we are misinterpreting the spirit of the thread. It seems like the OP wants single cities that comprise an entire county... or at least cities that are the sole incorporated entity in their respective county.

Right–although I don't think the OP is necessarily for the former (city encompasses the entire county) but rather the latter (city is the only incorporated municipality in the county).

Pennsylvania is one of those states where all territory is incorporated in some form (city, borough, or township), so Philadelphia is the only example where a county contains only one incorporated municipality.

Now if we adhere strictly to the word "city" , there are many examples, many of them being the county seat and the center of business and cultural activity in their respective counties: Harrisburg in Dauphin County, Lancaster in Lancaster County, Williamsport in Lycoming County, and many others. But each of those counties is packed with other incorporated boroughs and townships, and I don't think they're quite what the OP had in mind.

I was really looking for one corporation that is in a county but not taking up all its land.  Jacksonville, FL would not count, although I believe Neptune and Baldwin are considered incorporated cities even though Jacksonville is merged with the county they are in.  I am looking for one county that has only one form of municipal government within its borders that is not coexstensive with the county or acting in place of the county government.

NYC's five counties have no county level government so its all municipal running the show except in the court system each borough has a county prosecuter.  However, its just a county with only one municipality so to say it best.

[Rothman]

So much for Borough Presidents.

[roadman65]

So much for Borough Presidents.

They are still part of the great city of New York.

[D-Dey65]

Greensville County (Jarratt)

Not Emporia?

[ftballfan]

For Michigan,

Alcona County
Alger County
Alpena County
Barry County
Benzie County
Cheboygan County
Chippewa County
Crawford County
Grand Traverse County
Isabella County
Jackson County
Manistee County
Mecosta County
Montmorency County
Oceana County
Otsego County
Schoolcraft County

Counties with no cities:
Antrim County
Baraga County
Kalkaska County
Keweenaw County
Lake County
Leelanau County
Luce County
Ontonagon County
Oscoda County
Roscommon County

A lot of these counties have villages but in Michigan a village is part of a township.

Isabella doesn't count, as the City of Clare (based in Clare County) extends into Isabella County.

[Rothman]

So much for Borough Presidents.

They are still part of the great city of New York.

As county executives.

[Takumi]

Greensville County (Jarratt)

Not Emporia?

Emporia is technically an independent city, although it also is the Greensville county seat, as it was before it became independent.

[Road Hog]

I'm not aware of any other first name - last name county and seat combinations.

The seat of Millard County, Utah is Fillmore. Named for Millard Fillmore, who was the president when the Utah Territory was created.

There is also Pike County, Georgia, county seat Zebulon. It isn't an answer to this thread's original question, though, as there are four other cities there.

In Texas, Collin County and its county seat of McKinney are both named for Collin McKinney, who was an early settler.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

My personal favorite city/county name association is Montezuma County, CO, seat Cortez. Hernan Cortez was the Spanish conquistador who took down Montezuma's Aztec Empire in the 1500s.

[US 89]

My personal favorite city/county name association is Montezuma County, CO, seat Cortez. Hernan Cortez was the Spanish conquistador who took down Montezuma's Aztec Empire in the 1500s.

There’s also an Aztec, NM right in that area, to add to that theme.

[hbelkins]

I'm not aware of any other first name - last name county and seat combinations.

The seat of Millard County, Utah is Fillmore. Named for Millard Fillmore, who was the president when the Utah Territory was created.

There is also Pike County, Georgia, county seat Zebulon. It isn't an answer to this thread's original question, though, as there are four other cities there.

In Texas, Collin County and its county seat of McKinney are both named for Collin McKinney, who was an early settler.

There's a "wide spot in the road" community called Zebulon in Pike County, Ky. I'm not sure that it appears anywhere but on a map; meaning, I don't think there are signs to mark the community.

Perry County, Ky., is named for Oliver Hazard Perry. The county seat is Hazard. However, Hazard is not the only incorporated place in Perry County, so it doesn't qualify for this thread.

My personal favorite city/county name association is Montezuma County, CO, seat Cortez. Hernan Cortez was the Spanish conquistador who took down Montezuma's Aztec Empire in the 1500s.

Gee, thanks. Now I have a certain Neil Young song playing in my head.