Longest driving times to county seats

[oscar]

Do Alaska boroughs/census areas have "seats"?

The boroughs do. The census areas don't.

As noted above, the outlying communities in the North Slope Borough (most notably Deadhorse/Prudhoe Bay) have no normal road access to the county seat in Utqiaġvik (formerly Barrow). There is regularly scheduled air service to Utqiaġvik, including Alaska Airlines 737 jets from Deadhorse and Anchorage.

Another unusual situation is the Lake and Peninsula Borough, whose communities have no road links to each other, or the borough seat in King Salmon, which is in the Bristol Bay Borough rather than in Lake and Peninsula. (Bristol Bay's seat is Naknek rather than King Salmon.) There is scheduled propjet air service between Lake and Peninsula communities and King Salmon, which has Alaska Airlines jet flights to Anchorage.

While the propjet flight routes are "scheduled", arrival and departure times aren't really. The flight I took from Chignik (on the ferry system) to King Salmon left two hours early. A fishery office at the Chignik dock warned me that could happen, and was kind enough to drive me to the airport just before the plane arrived. The early departure may have been to accommodate a local mother and her baby, who had to fly back to the hospital in Dillingham (also outside Lake and Peninsula) for routine post-natal care, and got to show off her baby boy to friends and relatives scattered all over the Alaska Peninsula.

[roadfro]

For Nevada, the longest distance to county seat may involve getting to the seat of Nye County. From Pahrump, the most populated town in Nye County, it's 167 miles and 2.5 hours to the county seat in Tonopah. (And you'll spend about an hour of that drive in Esmeralda County, due to the course of US 95 and it really being the only logical way to make the trip.)

[US 89]

A little surprised nobody has mentioned Mohave County, AZ yet. From Beaver Dam or Littlefield, it's about 200 miles and three hours to the county seat in Kingman, and over half of that is in Nevada.

[jlam]

For Nevada, the longest distance to county seat may involve getting to the seat of Nye County. From Pahrump, the most populated town in Nye County, it's 167 miles and 2.5 hours to the county seat in Tonopah. (And you'll spend about an hour of that drive in Esmeralda County, due to the course of US 95 and it really being the only logical way to make the trip.)

Nah. The longest in Nevada has to be in Washoe County, between Vya and Reno. 3 hours 41 minutes, 215 miles. Link

[TheCatalyst31]

In Door County, Wisconsin, it's only 60 miles from Rock Island State Park to the county seat in Sturgeon Bay, but the trip takes about two hours and includes two ferries, one of which is passenger-only.

[Rothman]

In Door County, Wisconsin, it's only 60 miles from Rock Island State Park to the county seat in Sturgeon Bay, but the trip takes about two hours and includes two ferries, one of which is passenger-only.

Makes me wonder how many people live in the state park.

[1995hoo]

In Door County, Wisconsin, it's only 60 miles from Rock Island State Park to the county seat in Sturgeon Bay, but the trip takes about two hours and includes two ferries, one of which is passenger-only.

Makes me wonder how many people live in the state park.

In that respect, I don't remember how long the ferry takes from Isle Royale to Copper Harbor, Michigan. Wikipedia says it's a three to three-and-a-half hour trip to go the 56 miles. That sounds plausible to me. I remember the trip to Isle Royale felt interminable because the lake was angry that day and I got extremely seasick.

Google Maps then quotes another 31 minutes (22.9 miles) from the ferry parking in Copper Harbor to Eagle River, the county seat. So that's three and a half to four hours and approximately 80 miles. As Rothman notes, not many people live there–there are a few cabins remaining from prior to the national park era, and the families that own them have special agreements to allow them to continue to use those cabins seasonally until the children of the adults who owned the cabins at the time of the park's founding die. I believe six families continue to have such arrangements, and the individuals whose lives are the relevant ones for determining eligibility are all getting somewhat elderly by now. (I have no idea whether those people access the park from Michigan or from Minnesota, either.)

[Max Rockatansky]

It is about a 3.5 hour voyage between Copper Harbor-Isle Royale.  It wasn't super choppy on Lake Superior the day I went.

[roadfro]

For Nevada, the longest distance to county seat may involve getting to the seat of Nye County. From Pahrump, the most populated town in Nye County, it's 167 miles and 2.5 hours to the county seat in Tonopah. (And you'll spend about an hour of that drive in Esmeralda County, due to the course of US 95 and it really being the only logical way to make the trip.)

Nah. The longest in Nevada has to be in Washoe County, between Vya and Reno. 3 hours 41 minutes, 215 miles. Link

That's assuming anyone actually lives in Vya anymore to want to make that trip. Vya has essentially been a ghost town for about 100 years...

[jlam]

That's assuming anyone actually lives in Vya anymore to want to make that trip. Vya has essentially been a ghost town for about 100 years...

If you want to only include populated places, Jarbridge and Elko are 3 hours and 16 minutes apart.

[Max Rockatansky]

For Nevada, the longest distance to county seat may involve getting to the seat of Nye County. From Pahrump, the most populated town in Nye County, it's 167 miles and 2.5 hours to the county seat in Tonopah. (And you'll spend about an hour of that drive in Esmeralda County, due to the course of US 95 and it really being the only logical way to make the trip.)

Nah. The longest in Nevada has to be in Washoe County, between Vya and Reno. 3 hours 41 minutes, 215 miles. Link

That's assuming anyone actually lives in Vya anymore to want to make that trip. Vya has essentially been a ghost town for about 100 years...

I can confirm at least one person lived in Vya back in 2008 when I did NV 8A.

[computerfan0]

Bit of a change in topic, but in Ireland, the longest I could find was in the largest county, Cork. Cork County Hall is a 2hr 20min drive from the Dursey Cable Car according to Google. Here's said directions.

There are a handful of houses in the general area of the cable car, although the island itself has practically no residents (and the cable car doesn't transport cars anyway)

[Streetman]

The Census Bureau has replaced the 8 Connecticut counties with its 9 planning regions https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/06/06/2022-12063/change-to-county-equivalents-in-the-state-of-connecticut and those regions are being used in a county photo challenge here https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=33012.0. For this discussion, where are their "county seats"? My district is South Central CT, comprising most of the old New Haven County with former seat at New Haven. But the office of the planning region is in North Haven.

Of course regardless of what is considered "county seat" there won't be any great distances here.

[oscar]

The Census Bureau has replaced the 8 Connecticut counties with its 9 planning regions https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/06/06/2022-12063/change-to-county-equivalents-in-the-state-of-connecticut and those regions are being used in a county photo challenge here https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=33012.0. For this discussion, where are their "county seats"? My district is South Central CT, comprising most of the old New Haven County with former seat at New Haven. But the office of the planning region is in North Haven.

I've been treating the locations of the planning region offices as the new "county seats". But I'm unsure there is any consensus on that.

The planning organizations have a much narrower set of functions than the typical county, so there is less reason for local residents to go to the new "county seats". OTOH, they have one more function (planning) than the historical counties (zero), so there's no practical reason to prefer the historical county seats.