Hunterdon County, New Jersey

Hunterdon County is a county located in the western section of the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 128,349, increasing by 6,360 (+5.2%) from the 121,989 counted in the 2000 Census, retaining its position as the state's 14th-most populous county; The percentage increase since 2000 was the largest in New Jersey, almost triple the statewide increase of 4.5%, and the absolute increase in residents was the third highest. It is part of the New York Metropolitan Area. Its county seat is Flemington. The Bureau of Economic Analysis ranked the county as having the 19th-highest per capita income of all 3,113 counties in the United States (and the third highest in New Jersey) as of 2009.

It is part of the Newark-Union, NJ-PA Metropolitan Division of the New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Hunterdon County was established on March 11, 1714, separating from Burlington County, at which time it included all of present-day Morris, Sussex and Warren counties. The rolling hills and rich soils which produce bountiful agricultural crops drew Native American tribes and then Europeans to the area.

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.