Talk:List of cities and counties in Virginia/Archive 1

Archive 1

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Wondering how to edit this U.S. County Entry?
The WikiProject U.S. Counties standards might help.

Can we make this list one where you don't have to scroll? Having a picture of every single county isn't really necessary. -Branddobbe 06:54, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

The imagemap is fucked up.

Csörföly D 21:51, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikiproject help

Some helpful information on U.S. county lists can be found at WP:COUNTYLISTS. Tompw (talk) (review) 16:32, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Comments

In my browser (MS Explorer), all the hot spots for the counties in the state map all lie well NW of the counties they should cover.68.230.222.159 18:49, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

How can the city of Roanoke (population 94,911) and the county of Roanoke have the exact same population? The county seat is Salem (population 24,747). The city of Salem's population plus the city of Roanoke's population is 119,658 and that doesn't include the unincorporated areas. 19 August 2019 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmkizer (talk • contribs) 17:20, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Establishment dates for cities

The establishment dates for the cities in this table are mostly incorrect; I'm guessing these are probably the dates of the most current articles of incorporation, since none of them are earlier than 1900, and there certainly are cities in Virginia that are older than that. Richmond, for instance, was incorporated as a city in 1782, and Lynchburg was incorporated sometime in the late 18th or early 19th century. Also, the source cited at the top of the column applies to the counties, but that source doesn't give any establishment or founding dates for cities that I can find. There is no clear indication of where these dates were taken from.

Can I assume that we should use the date the city was first incorporated? That, at least, should be fairly easy to determine in each case, though there may not be one readily available source that includes all of them. LBourne (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:51, 5 April 2010 (UTC).

Regarding "the most current articles of incorporation": those may give the dates of the current boundaries but we do not give current boundary dates for counties. For independent cities we should give the dates when they became county-equivalents. Are those the original "incorporation dates"?

I agree, National Association of Counties is the cited source for four fields but it does not give county seat (redundant or inapplicable) or date for the independent cities, only population and area. Whatever dates we list for the cities, we need to expand the source note.

Just now I revised the Staunton date from 2000 to 1902 which happens to match the text of Staunton, Virginia. A reliable source is interactive "Virginia Historical Counties" (select a date) provided by the Newberry Library Atlas of Historical County Boundaries. The Atlas data are daily, although the interactive maps do not provide a comfortable view of daily data! For Staunton compare the maps for July 9 and July 10, 1902. --P64 (talk) 00:29, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

The Atlas shows 17 independent cities appear on its interactive map July 10, 1902. That is the earliest date it shows any independent cities. For now I have revised all those dates to 1902 with identical reference tags that will be easy to find and perhaps replace automatically, if and when we know what happened at an earlier date such as 1871 (see independent cities#Virginia).

The dates referenced on the "Virginia Historical Counties" source mark the date of the last border modification. The 1902 date is when the Virginia Constitution that included the independent city law was finalized. (Source)The City of Norfolk, for example, was established as a City in 1845, but the settlement that is Norfolk was founded in 1682. (Source) I think that, as a list of Virginia Counties, extinct counties should be included so as to give a better picture of the history. I propose that the date established should be the official date incorporated as a city, while the origin should list the county it from which it was carved. I would write it like this (my sources are above):

County	FIPS code	County seat	Established	Origin	Etymology	Population	Area	Map
City of Chesapeake	550	N/A	1963	Formed out of consolidation of Norfolk County (extinct) and City of South Norfolk (extinct)	Chesapeake tribe	199,184	341 sq mi (883 km2)
City of Hampton	650	N/A	1908	Founded 1610. Current city formed by consolidation of Elizabeth City County and City of Hampton in 1952	Disputed; either Southampton, England or Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, one of the founders of the Virginia Company	146,437	52 sq mi (135 km2)
City of Norfolk	710	N/A	1845	Founded 1682. Incorporated as City in 1845 from Lower Norfolk County (extinct)	Norfolk, England	234,403	54 sq mi (140 km2)
City of Portsmouth	740	N/A	1858	Founded 1752. Incorporated as City in 1858 from Norfolk County (extinct)	Portsmouth, England	100,565	33 sq mi (85 km2)
City of Suffolk	800	N/A	1910	Founded 1742. Incorporated as City in 1910 from Nansemond County (extinct)	Suffolk, England	63,677	400 sq mi (1,036 km2)
City of Virginia Beach	810	N/A	1963	Founded 1888 around existing community of Seatack. Incorporated as City in 1963 from Princess Anne County County (extinct)	The city's coastal location	425,257	248 sq mi (642 km2)

I think this method would give the most complete picture of Virginia's history as it related to the boundary structures while remaining easy to read and cite. The eastern counties can go all the way back to the original shires. (Norfolk87 (talk) 08:13, 31 January 2012 (UTC))

Roanoke, Virginia gives the date 1884 for incorporation as an independent city, without any reference. The articles on Radford and Richmond do not give a date or otherwise cover the independent city status. --P64 (talk)

Here is how the "Featured Lists" of counties in Maryland, Missouri, and Nevada cover Name, Date, and Origin fields for the three other independent cities in the United States.

• Baltimore City, 1851, "Founded in 1729. Detached in 1851 from Baltimore County"
• St. Louis City, 1876, "Created in 1876 when city residents voted to secede from St. Louis County"
• Carson City, 1969, "Separated from Ormsby County"

The latter is not very good, and so much would be easy to do quickly for all of the Virginia IC. The first two provide models for Virginie aspiration. I'm not sure whether Baltimore's founding or St Louis' vote of the residents has more appropriate claim to the limited space available. --P64 (talk) 15:01, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

In the "Origin" field, without change to "Date", I have incorporated all the data on IC formation published in the 1920 Census as notes to the tables of population by county. There is no note on Williamsburg City or Hampton City and neither one is covered in the tables as an independent city. Among those present-day ICs which the Atlas displays on maps before 1920, those two are the only ones now lacking "Origin" with date of separation. --P64 (talk) 20:55, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

References

Including cities on this list

Independent Cities: I returned them to the list of counties. Virginia's cities are considered county like subdivisions by the census bureau, unlike almost all other cities. The list of Virginia's counties should probably also include its cities, as the independent city of Baltimore is included in the list of Maryland Counties, or how Alaska's list is formatted (List of boroughs and census areas in Alaska) to include multiple types of county like subdivisions. The counties list formatting is also much better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hamiltonl (talk • contribs) 13:43, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

I understand the reasoning, but I'm not sure this is the best solution. I acknowledge that cities are "county-like" for census purposes in Virginia, but they are still separate legal entities, with different powers (which is why, e.g., Princess Anne County decided to merge with Virginia Beach). So, it seems to me that present status is not satisfactory in that the title of this list does not match the content. I see two reasonable solutions - (A) merge the lists of citites and counties into List of Cities and Counties in Virginia; or (B) maintain the separate lists with cities in one list and counties in the other, and create or maintain appropriate linkages explaining the differences and similarities between the two. My preference is for solution B - it's informative to have both lists and keeps the page from getting too long. Other thougths?--Kubigula (talk) 18:03, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Since the 1971 Virginia Constitution and the 1987 annexation moratorium, counties and cities are equal subdivisions of the state; Nansemond City merged with Suffolk County to become Suffolk City, but Clifton Forge, South Boston, and Bedford this year will have all merged with their neighboring counties. Virginia's system is wacky, but the merged list I think is the best solution. A page explaining Virginia's system in more detail is a good idea. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hamiltonl (talk • contribs) 16:49, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

The present structure seems appropriate: one list (article), one table that is sorted by default to separate the independent counties. All of the Inde-city names are now redlinks, which should be repaired--at Template:Countyrow?

Red color does distinguish them visibly after a visitor re-sorts the table, which is good in itself. A short preface should explain the default sort and say that FIPS code is greater than 500 for Inde-cities and less than 200 for the other counties, or words to that effect.

--P64 (talk)

I think the the scope of this page should be limited to just counties, but that we should create a List of counties and cities in Virginia so that we can have a list of counties that includes county-equivalents. All the other "List of counties in X contain the county-equivalents, but, other than Alaska's census areas, all the other states have very few, if any county-equivalents*. Virgina is probably the only state (expert maybe Alaska) where separate list of just counties, and a list including county-equivalents would be useful, any other state and the lists would be almost identical. We should clearly state in a hatnote that this list excludes county-equivalents, and point to the list that includes them. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 17:28, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

*I'm counting Alaska's boroughs and Louisiana's parishes as counties, not county-equivalents, because "borough" and "parish" is just their term for "county")

Agreed - a good solution and much less confusing than what we have now!.--Kubigula (talk) 20:26, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

So, um, there seems to have been a consensus for a combined list, and yet List of counties and cities in Virginia still redirects here, almost four years later. A list with all of Virginia's county-equivalents seems like it would be a good idea. john k (talk) 21:04, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Good point. Looks like Emmette Hernandez Coleman suggested a joint list and also a separate list just for counties. No reason that can't still happen, but I went ahead and moved this page based on the prior discussion. To me "List of Cities and Counties" flows better than "List of Counties and Cities", but I am not married to that.--Mojo Hand (talk) 21:40, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

That seems good to me...do we think there should be a combined table, though? That way you could do a population sort or an area sort that would include both. Also, shouldn't we have a list of former independent cities? There's seven: Bedford, Clifton Forge, South Boston, Nansemond, Warwick, Manchester, and South Norfolk.

County creation dates

My God, look at how many counties do not have their creation dates on here. I am using info from Atlas of Historical County Boundaries to add full dates on county pages. DudeWithAFeud (talk) 06:36, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

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