In the United States, an administrative or political subdivision of a state is a county, which is

a region having specific boundariesand usually some level of governmental authority.[1] The
term "county" is used in 48 U.S. states, while Louisiana and Alaska have functionally
equivalent subdivisions called parishes and boroughs respectively.[1]
Most counties have subdivisions which may include municipalities and unincorporated areas.
Others have no further divisions, or may serve as a consolidated city-county. Some
municipalities are in multiple counties; New York City is uniquely partitioned into multiple
counties, referred to at the city government level as boroughs.
The U.S. federal government uses the term "county equivalent" to describe non-county
administrative or statistical areas that are comparable to counties. Louisiana parishes; the
organized boroughs of Alaska; the District of Columbia; and the independent cities of the
states of Virginia, Maryland, Missouri, and Nevada are equivalent to counties for
administrative purposes. Alaska's Unorganized Borough is divided into 10 census areas that
are statistically equivalent to counties. As of 2017, there are currently 3142 counties
and county-equivalents in the United States.[2]
The number of counties per state ranges from the 3 counties of Delaware to the 254
counties of Texas.
Counties have significant governmental functions in all states except Rhode
Island and Connecticut, where county governments have been abolished but the entities
remain for administrative or statistical purposes. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has
removed most government functions from eight of its 14 counties.
The county with the largest population, Los Angeles County (10,170,292),[3] and the county
with the largest land area (San Bernardino County) border each other in Southern
California (however four Boroughs in Alaska are larger in area than San Bernardino).