Every one of the fifty United States has a largest county[1]. Of that collection of counties, which is the smallest?
Providence County – 436 Square Miles
Providence County, Rhode Island is the smallest of those largest counties (map). That’s not too hard to believe, right? After all, Rhode Island is the smallest state and one would expect small counties to exist there almost by definition.
However, I’m going to have to throw down a flag and call a foul. Rhode Island doesn’t have counties. Well, it does have things that they call counties. Those exist primarily for the decennial census and other Federal reporting requirements and such. Nonetheless, they don’t function as counties. As the Office of the Secretary of State of Rhode Island freely admits, the state disestablished its county system and replaced it with 39 self-governing municipalities.
Sorry, Rhode Island, if you want this distinction you have to have “real” counties.
Allen County – 657 Square Miles
Thus the “real” smallest largest county in the United States is Allen County, Indiana (map). Fort Wayne is the county seat. The City of Fort Wayne Community Net website includes some interesting fun facts. I don’t really feel like confirming these independently but Fort Wayne claims to be “within a 250 miles radius of 17% of the total U.S. population, and within a days’ drive of half the nations’ population.” How random is that?
As much as I love those kinds of claims, and you know I do, it’s not nearly as interesting as this one:
“Overall ranking for the Fort Wayne Metropolitan Area was 150 out of the 200 largest metro areas in the index utilized by Forbes in year 2006 Best Places for Business and Careers report. The index weighs expenses related to labor, energy, taxes and office space. Job and income growth, migration patterns and crime rates are also factored in.”
Huh? Are they saying what I think they’re saying? That 75% of all other major metropolitan areas are better than Fort Wayne? I can’t even imagine why they would put this on their website unless maybe they used to be a lot crappier and are showing signs of improvement. That’s inexplicable. They need to come up with an advertising claim better than “We squeaked into the second quartile!”
I think they’d improve the situation by publicizing the largest smallest county claim instead. I’d visit.
SEE RELATED TOPIC: The Largest Smallest US County.
12MC Loves Footnotes!
[1] Yes, I realize there are parishes, boroughs, independent cities and disestablished counties, but let’s keep this simple for now
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