An ancient institution may provide a cost-saving tool

It is the most important and common form of government below the state level. There are 3,141 of them in the country, yet most Rhode Islanders would be hard-pressed to relate to them. In fact, they probably would find it difficult to name the five that exist in our state. By now it may have dawned on you, especially if you have lived outside of the Ocean State, that we are talking about counties.
We may use county names here to identify the five divisions of the state, and the U.S. Census Bureau provides data for these divisions. But our counties have no elected officials and provide no governmental services such as police, fire, roads, schools, etc. that are normally undertaken by these governmental bodies and which are common in other states.
There is one exception to how counties function in our state: We have county sheriffs who serve the courts which, administratively, are divided by counties.
These sheriffs are appointed and housed in county courthouses in Providence, Warwick, Westerly, Bristol and Newport. Their role is to provide security and transport prisoners. Qualifications for these politically sensitive positions were questioned in the recent past when a lawnmower repairman received such an appointment.
The historical development of counties goes back to the early time of royalty in England. Before 1066, kings of England could not control outer regions of their domain, so they selected earls to administer these districts called shires, the name still retained in places such as Yorkshire and Hampshire. But after that Norman invasion of 1066 the French term for these areas replaced shire with comte, the term from which we get the county of today.
The first counties in this country were established in Virginia in 1634 and quickly spread throughout the South in this sparsely settled region, with large land holdings – plantations – a common land use. By contrast, in the densely settled Northeast, with difficult farming and resultant small land holdings, villages, towns and cities took hold and became the principal governmental providers with counties providing limited services.
Today, 47 states have county government; only Alaska, Connecticut and Rhode Island do not. Alaska is divided by Census areas, boroughs and cities, while Connecticut and Rhode Island retain the names of these non-functioning entities. Even though Louisiana calls its counties parishes, the U.S. Census Bureau provides data for all of these state divisions under the title of county in its City and County Data publication.
The 3,141 counties average 1,126 square miles in land area, larger than the state of Rhode Island at 1,045 square miles!
And Bristol County, at 25 square miles, is the third-smallest in the country, following Kalawao, Hawaii, at 13 square miles and New York County (Manhattan) at 22 square miles.
Bristol County also has another distinction: It is the only county that is contiguous with another county of another state with the same name. Bristol County in Massachusetts is considerably larger, at 557 square miles. This unusual condition is a result of a land award that took place in London with royal decree that gave five border towns to Rhode Island, including the three of Barrington, Warren and Bristol, which make up the small county. Bristol County in Rhode Island retained the same name as the county from which it was taken from Massachusetts.
Although non-functioning, our Rhode Island counties could form a serviceable division of the state that might be used should the state ever turn to some regional activities, such as schools, police, fire, roads, etc., which have been espoused by political leaders. With further state budgetary problems, this is an area which should be considered. •
Chester E. Smolski is a retired professor of geography at Rhode Island College.