Whatcom County, Washington

Whatcom County /ˈhwɒtkəm/ is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2010 census, the population was 201,140. The county seat and largest city is Bellingham. The county was created out of Island County by the Washington Territorial Legislature on March 9, 1854, and originally included present day San Juan and Skagit Counties. Its name ultimately derives from the Lummi word Xwotʼqom, meaning "noisy water."

Whatcom County comprises the Bellingham, WA Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Whatcom County's northern border is the international boundary with the Canadian province of British Columbia; adjoining the county on the north are four of metropolitan Vancouver's suburbs, Delta, White Rock, Surrey, Langley, and, in the central Fraser Valley, Abbotsford, with several shopping malls and other services in Bellingham and elsewhere in the county geared to cross-border shopping and recreation. The five crossing points are two at Blaine (one at the Peace Arch, located on the Interstate 5 crossing, and the other a commercial and passenger crossing on the Pacific Highway at State Route 543, both to Surrey, British Columbia), as well as at Lynden (SR 539, to Aldergrove), Sumas (SR 9, to Abbotsford), and Point Roberts (Tyee Drive, to Tsawwassen).

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.