County
A
county is a geographical region of a country used for administrative or other purposes in certain modern nations. Its etymology derives from the Old French term,
conté or
cunté and could denote a jurisdiction in mainland Europe, under the sovereignty of a count or a viscount. The modern French is
comté, and its equivalents in other languages are
contea,
contado,
comtat,
condado,
Grafschaft,
Gau, etc.. When the Normans conquered England, they brought the term with them. The Saxons had already established the districts that became the historic counties of England, calling them shires. The Vikings introduced the term earl to the British Isles. Thus, "earl" and "earldom" were taken as equivalent to the continental use of "count" and "county". So the later-imported term became a synonym for the native English word
scir or, in Modern English,
shire. Since a shire was an administrative division of the kingdom, the term "county" evolved to designate an administrative division of national government in most modern uses.