List of counties in Delaware

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Image:Delaware-counties-map.gif Delaware has three counties, New Castle, Kent, and Sussex.

County formation

Following the English conquest of 1664, all of the western side of the Delaware River and Delaware Bay was governed as part of the New York Colony and was administered from the town of New Castle, Delaware. During the brief recapture of the colony by the Dutch in 1673, Governor Anthony Colve formally created additional court districts at Whorekill, now Lewes, Delaware, and Upland, now Chester, Pennsylvania, leaving the court at New Castle with the central portion of the colony.

The former Whorekill District was named for the Whorekill Creek and the Dutch community on it. The name remembered the amorous activity of Native American women at that location. The community became the town of Lewes, Delaware and was the county seat of the Whorekill District and Sussex County until 1791.

The former Upland District was named for the Swedish settlement of Upland and renamed Chester County in 1682 by William Penn. It has since been divided into Delaware County and Chester County and was wholly within the present boundaries of Pennsylvania.

The boundaries between the districts were not well defined, and there is some indication that the Upland District served the Swedish and Finnish population in the central Delaware Valley, and New Castle served the Dutch and few English.

Lord Baltimore, the Proprietor of Maryland claimed all of present-day Delaware, and organized the northern and eastern portions of it as Durham County. This county existed only on paper. The southern and western portions of present-day Sussex County were organized as portions of several adjacent Maryland counties and were not recognized as part of Sussex County, Delaware until the Mason-Dixon Survey was run in 1767.

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County information

FIPS State Code	State	State Abbr.
10	Delaware	DE
FIPS County Code	County Name	Created	Parent County	Previous Names	County Seat	Population (2000)	area (sq. miles)	Origin of Name	Link
001	Kent	1680	Whorekill	St. Jones	Dover	126,697	426	County of Kent, England	Kent County
003	New Castle	1664	original		Wilmington	500,265	590	Town of New Castle	New Castle County
005	Sussex	1680	Whorekill	Deale	Georgetown	156,638	938	County of Sussex, England	Sussex County
	TOTAL					783,600	1,954

Whorekill District was created in 1673 and divided into Deale County and St. Jones County in 1680.
St. Jones County was renamed Kent County in 1682 by William Penn.
Deale County was renamed Sussex County in 1682 by William Penn after his native county in England. The county seat of Sussex County was at Lewes until 1791.
The county seat of New Castle County was originally at New Castle.

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References

The Delaware Genealogical research Guide (1997). Delaware Counties and Hundreds. Retrieved August 17, 2005.
The Historical Society of Delaware. Delaware Counties. Retrieved August 17, 2005.

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