Frederick County

Frederick County is the name of two counties in the United States.

Frederick County, Maryland

Frederick County is a county located in the northern part of the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the population was 240,336. The county seat is Frederick.

Frederick County is included in the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area. As a result, the county has experienced a rapid population increase in recent years. The county is sometimes associated with Western Maryland, depending on the definition used. It borders the southern border of Pennsylvania and the northeastern border of Virginia.

The county is home to Catoctin Mountain Park (encompassing the presidential retreat Camp David) and to the U.S. Army's Fort Detrick. It has also been the home to several celebrated historical figures like Francis Scott Key, Thomas Johnson, Roger B. Taney, and Barbara Fritchie.

Etymology

The namesake of Frederick County and its county seat is unknown, but it probably was either Frederick, Prince of Wales or Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore.

Frederick

Frederick may refer to:

People

Nobility

Anhalt-Harzgerode

Austria

Baden

Bohemia

Britain

Brandenburg/Prussia

County

A county, abbreviated Cnty. (US) or Co. (UK and Ireland), is a geographical region of a country used for administrative or other purposes, in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French conté or cunté denoting a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count (earl) or a viscount. The modern French is comté, and its equivalents in other languages are contea, contado, comtat, condado, Grafschaft, graafschap, Gau, etc. (cf. conte, comte, conde, Graf).

When the Normans conquered England, they brought the term with them. The Saxons had already established the districts that became the historic counties of England, calling them shires (many county names derive from the name of the county town with the word "shire" added on: for example, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire). The Vikings introduced the term earl (from Old Norse, jarl) to the British Isles. Thus, "earl" and "earldom" were taken as equivalent to the continental use of "count" and "county". So the later-imported term became a synonym for the native English word scir ([ʃiːr]) or, in Modern English, shire. Since a shire was an administrative division of the kingdom, the term "county" evolved to designate an administrative division of national government in most modern uses.

Sheriff

In principle, a sheriff is a legal official with responsibility for a "shire", i.e. county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country.