The 1990 decennial census reported data for 35,298 county subdivisions, a net increase of 103 from 1980. The single most dramatic change—140 new county subdivisions in Louisiana—resulted from the replacement of the 487 police jury wards with 627 parish governing authority districts. Elsewhere, Arkansas lost 43 townships because of consolidations, West Virginia lost 33 magisterial districts as a result of redistricting, and South Dakota lost 31 townships because of disorganizations. The 57 townships in Nevada were replaced by 67 CCDs. Apart from the new CCDs in Nevada, there were few changes in the number of CCDs. Three States (Kentucky, Montana, and New Mexico) gained a single new CCD, and one CCD in Utah was consolidated with an existing CCD.
Other sizeable changes in the number of county subdivisions (29 new entities) occurred in the category of independent incorporated places. The increase resulted from new incorporations, annexations into additional counties by existing places (thus creating new MCD equivalents), and a few dependent places becoming independent. There also was a decrease of 13 plantations in Maine, most of which became towns. The disorganization of some MCDs, coupled with the identification of additional areas as being outside of nonfunctioning MCDs, resulted in a net increase of nine unorganized territories.
Figures 2-1 and 2-2 in Chapter 2 illustrate, in generalized fashion, the position of county subdivisions in the Census Bureau’s geographic hierarchy. This section discusses the geographic relationships in the 50 States; for information on Puerto Rico and the Outlying Areas, refer to Chapter 7.
County subdivisions nest within counties and statistically equivalent entities and constitute complete coverage of all their area and population. Where an incorporated place that is independent of any MCD exists in
