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North County (which is actually part of San Diego County). In California the word "area"is also used a lot. For example Bay Area, LA area is very common to hear.
In Columbus you'll hear a lot about Franklin County (the core county of the metro) and maybe about Delaware County. No one cares about the rest to be honest.
Form what I've heard, in the Bay Area people frequently will talk of counties. They'll talk of living in Marin County, or visiting wine country in Napa or Sonoma counties, without mentioning a specific city. Local news there almost always refers to a county as well as a city for their reports, saying so-and-so happened in Contra Costa or Alameda or Santa Clara County, often before mentioning a specific city.
And of course the city of San Francisco itself is conterminous with the county of San Francisco.
i live in boston where people rarely talk about counties. but on this forum (and elsewhere) you will hear orange county, dade county, prince george county, ...
what are the metros where counties are used describe where a person lives moreso than the actual city or town ?
My guess it would be areas which have a lot of residents but not as many incorporated communities like states like New Jersey or Massachusetts. So you are probably looking in the South or the West. California, Texas and Florida are good bets. Also, someone mentioned Georgia, which has a lot of counties for its size.
There are some exceptions. Fairfield County in Connecticut for example has no county government at all but it is mentioned a lot because it is wealthy and it has such a positive reputation that people are proud to say they live there. Meanwhile in contrast I NEVER hear anyone say they are from New Haven County, they say their local community XYZ instead. My guess is that the city of New Haven gives a bad rep to New Haven County.
The borough names are sometimes different than their county names, though:
Borough/County
Manhattan/New York county
Bronx/Bronx county
Queens/Queens county
Brooklyn/Kings county
Staten Island/Richmond county
As far as NYC area residents referring to other counties, in addition to Westchester and Rockland, I find Nassau and Suffolk are used a lot, with Bergen (NJ) and Fairfield (CT) rounding it out.
Right. Manhattan, Staten Island, and Brooklyn are counties, but nobody ever calls them by their county name so I guess that doesn't count. Queens and The Bronx use their county names as their borough names though so I'm not sure if that counts
Right. Manhattan, Staten Island, and Brooklyn are counties, but nobody ever calls them by their county name so I guess that doesn't count. Queens and The Bronx use their county names as their borough names though so I'm not sure if that counts :think:
You noticed that too? When I lived in Queens, sometimes you would often hear Queens County instead of just say Queens. The Borough President and other local politicians always said Queens County, maybe it sounded more prestigious or independent or something?
After Queens you would sometimes see Bronx County. In contrast you would almost never see Kings County (Brooklyn) or New York County (Manhattan) unless it had something to do with the court system. I am not sure about Richmond County (Staten Island).
I believe New Jersey in general fits that description really well.
There are a ton of very small municipalities and a lot of suburbanites don't identify with larger urban areas like Newark, Trenton, AC, Paterson, Camden etc. As a result people tend to say they are from "x" County or just say North, South or Central Jersey.
Yes, I agree. NJ has 21 counties, and you get a good idea about where a person lives by what county they're in. The state is small but has diverse geography, so Sussex County means you live in a more mountainous area while Monmouth County means you have access to the Atlantic Ocean and Hudson County means you're across the river from NYC.
Now that is an example of an interesting localism. Sort of what we do on Long Island, we live ON Long Island not IN Long Island.
And when we in NJ talk about someone on LI, we say, "he lives out on the island" and everyone knows what you mean!
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