A county is generally a sub-unit of regional self-government within a sovereign jurisdiction. Originally, in continental Europe, a county was the land under the jurisdiction of a count. Counts are called earls in post-Celtic Britain and Ireland—the term is from Old Norse jarl and was introduced by the Vikings—but there is no correlation between counties and earldoms. Rather, county, from French comté, was simply used by the Normans after 1066 to replace the native English term scir ()—Modern English shire. A shire was an administrative division of an Anglo-Saxon kingdom (Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia, etc.), usually named after its administrative centre: for example, Gloucestershire, in Gloucester; Worcestershire, in Worcester; etc.Etymology of the word county.
Thus, whereas the word comté denoted a sovereign jurisdiction in the original French, the English county denotes a subdivision of a sovereign jurisdiction.

1990 Census Tract Maps for Kentucky Counties - Displays tract boundaries and major highways.
Essay - The Landscape of the New Republic: Kentucky County Names - Origins of the names of early Kentucky counties. Author: Benjamin H. Irvin
Kentucky Atlas and Gazetteer - County General Highway Maps - The following maps, covering about three fourths of Kentucky's counties, are available. The dates of the maps range from 1990 to 1998 and are indicated. The files are GIF images ranging in size from about 256 kilobytes up to a little more than a megabyte. The names of virtually all of the places and roads marked on the maps are indexed in the Gazetteer.
Kentucky Counties - Alphabetical Table - Gives county seat, parent county, the dates of any disasters and whether county records were destroyed, and links to the county web sites.
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Kentucky County Courthouses - Lists counties alphabetically. Includes founding dates, order, county seats, parent counties and any disasters that have happened to county facilities.
Kentucky County History - Summaries by county of formation history and disasters that destroyed records.
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Kentucky Economic Development Information System - Provides profiles, demographics, and special development programs and projects.
National Association of Counties (NACo) - Kentucky Counties - Provides a list of counties with 2000 census details and size. Includes a list of cities.
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