Administrative county (Canada)

An administrative county, usually simply known as a county, is the upper tier division of local government within the 12 provinces of the Canadian Republic; the lower tier is a municipality, of which each county has several, as well as usually many unincorporated communities which rely solely on the county level of government for all local government services.

As county boundaries have changed over time, in addition to mergers or more often divisions of counties into two or more entities, ceremonial counties were created as a cultural/historical preservative. For example, the Canadian province of British Columbia's most populous region, the Lower Mainland, is a ceremonial county, but actually consists of seven distinct administrative counties.

Administrative counties are for the most part referred to simply as counties, adding the "administrative" prefix only when meant to distinguish from ceremonial counties. This distinction can also be made by referring to administrative counties as "counties proper".