This is a list of the five counties in the U.S. state

U.S. state

A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...

 of Rhode Island

Rhode Island

The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...

. Rhode Island is tied with Hawaii

Hawaii

Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

 for having the second lowest number of counties of any U.S. state (only Delaware has fewer, with three counties). Although Rhode Island is divided into counties, it does not have any local government at the county level. Instead, local governance is provided by the eight cities and thirty-one towns. Counties in Rhode Island have had no governmental functions since 1846 other than as court administrative and sheriff corrections boundaries which are part of state government.

Within Rhode Island, Washington County is often referred to as South County.

The colony of Rhode Island was established in the 17th century, and was the first of the thirteen original American colonies

Thirteen Colonies

The Thirteen Colonies were English and later British colonies established on the Atlantic coast of North America between 1607 and 1733. They declared their independence in the American Revolution and formed the United States of America...

 to declare independence from British rule in 1776, signaling the start of the American Revolution

American Revolution

The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...

. The counties were all established before the Declaration of Independence.

The Federal Information Processing Standard

Federal Information Processing Standard

A Federal Information Processing Standard is a publicly announced standardization developed by the United States federal government for use in computer systems by all non-military government agencies and by government contractors, when properly invoked and tailored on a contract...

 (FIPS) code, which is used by the United States government to uniquely identify states and counties, is provided with each entry. Rhode Island's code is 44, which when combined with any county code would be written as 44XXX. The FIPS code for each county links to census data for that county.

Alphabetical list

County

FIPS Code

County Seat County seat A county seat is an administrative center, or seat of government, for a county or civil parish. The term is primarily used in the United States.... (defunct)

Created

Origin

Etymology

Population (2010)

Land Area

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