What is a County?

Vol. III, No, 192 - A Little Local Government 101, as we explore county government

County government in Ohio can feel distant until it shows up in a tax bill, a road project, or a court case with real consequences for daily life. Yet the county map on the wall at the county courthouse is not an accident or a relic. It is the product of more than a thousand years of trial and error in how communities organize authority, keep records, and decide who is responsible for what. Understanding where counties came from helps explain why they still matter in how Ohio is run today.

The idea of county government didn’t begin in America—it reaches back more than a thousand years to medieval England. After the Romans withdrew from Britain in the 400s, the island broke into tribal regions, each much like a small kingdom unto itself. Over time, as the Anglo-Saxons built larger and more unified realms, they needed a better way to manage land, collect taxes, and keep order.

That’s how the “shire” came to be. The word comes from “scīr,” meaning a division of land. Each shire was run by an appointed official called the “shire reeve”—a title that gradually became “sheriff.” The sheriff’s job was a busy one. He gathered the king’s taxes, enforced the law, and acted as the monarch’s eyes and ears in the countryside. By the late 800s, under King Alfred the Great, England was divided not only into shires but also into smaller units called “hundreds” and “tithings.” This system became the backbone for local government in England and, eventually, across the Atlantic.

When English settlers began building new lives in North America, they brought the county model with them. Some early colonial charters spelled out systems of local government, but growth and distance made more decentralized control necessary. In places like Virginia and Maryland, counties became the main units of government—handling courts, taxes, and public order. In New England, with its denser towns, counties served more as judicial and record-keeping districts than as political centers, a model still seen today.

After the Revolutionary War, the United States experimented with national structure under the Articles of Confederation, a system that proved too weak to hold the young country together. Still, one enduring achievement of that period was the Northwest Ordinance of 1787—a landmark policy guiding how new territories would be settled and governed. The Ordinance opened the vast Northwest Territory—lands north and west of the Ohio River—to organized settlement. This enormous region eventually became six Midwestern states, including Ohio.

The Northwest Ordinance drew extensively on English and colonial models, establishing a layered framework of local governance built around counties and townships. It was, in practice, a negotiated patchwork, reflecting tensions within the early federal government: leaders from more rural, sparsely populated Southern states pushed for county-based administration across the new territory, while representatives from the more urbanized North advocated for town-based governance. The compromise created a dual structure of counties and towns operating through townships, with each level assigned distinct powers and responsibilities. In Ohio, this legacy produced 88 counties and more than 1,300 townships descended from the Ordinance, a key reason the state now ranks fifth nationally in the number of local governmental units.

Each county had basic offices: a sheriff, a justice of the peace, and a handful of commissioners to oversee roads, records, and property. When Ohio entered the Union in 1803 as the first state carved from the Territory, it shaped those early administrative ideas into its own county system. The state began with just a handful of counties—Washington, Hamilton, and Adams among them.

Early county government was simple. Officials handled justice, land sales, road improvements, and public order. But as settlers poured in and communities multiplied, more counties were added. New boundaries were sometimes drawn for practical reasons, sometimes for political ones. Courthouses became the anchors of emerging county seats—often the only town of any size for miles.

Many Ohio counties still carry the same names as their seat, such as Marion, Paulding, and Van Wert, reflecting that early pattern of local settlement. As Ohio grew, so did the sophistication of its counties. The roster of elected officials expanded to include commissioners, clerk of courts, treasurers, auditors, judges, and sheriffs—each responsible for a distinct piece of local life. County governments handled infrastructure, public health, and elections.

They kept land records, collected taxes, and funneled state and federal aid into local projects. By the 20th century, counties had become key players in everything from building roads to managing welfare programs. As cities expanded, some counties urbanized while others remained rural and sparsely populated. Each adapted to changing needs—modernizing operations, adopting technologies, and taking on new responsibilities tied to growth and governance.

County government, as one of the first forms of county government, doesn’t necessarily fit nicely into a model that has three branches of government. Independent elected officials, such as treasurers, auditors and clerk of courts are as close as we get to executive officers in county government, but the distributed power amongst different offices without one clear head executive, doesn’t quite fit the mold. The County Commission, doesn’t truly act as a legislative body, consisting of only three members and being tightly bound by the Ohio Revised Code, their role is more administrative in nature.

Today, Ohio’s 88 counties remain vital to how the state functions. Though they no longer feel as rural or isolated as they once did, they still provide residents with essential services and local representation. The same structure that began with shires and sheriffs more than a millennium ago continues to shape how Ohioans live, vote, and govern today—a long thread of local authority connecting medieval England to modern civic life.

A New Handbook to grow Civic Capacity!

Recently, we created a new digital handbook, “The Citizen’s Guide to Public Records”. This handbook is designed to help residents have a better understanding of public meetings and meeting records. It’s filled with templates, ideas and other information that will open a new world of public affairs.

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