All right, let me start off by defending myself. I have a very good knowledge of American geography, and a fairly good knowledge of "World Geography". I am no genius, but I am not quite stupid either. I just felt the need to clear that one up.

I have been spending A LOT of time around a certain friend and her family lately, and her dad is from England. More specifically, Devon. He mentioned it was real beautiful and stuff (they are about to go visit family), so I decided to look it up. And now I'm CONFUSED.

Is Devon a county? If so, what is Essex? A city? It seems to be very different than America, since we have a country divided into states, divided into counties and cities... we don't refer to the counties as often as the English seem to. So anyhow, could someone please clarify what all these places are for me, if you can make sense of my ramblings? Thanks so much!

You are trying to compare apples with oranges here. The American 'State' is the equivalent to the English 'County'. Essex and Devon are both counties (there are about 40 of them). Check out this map.

Where US states are divided into counties, UK counties are divided into shires.

Hope this explains it all.

Thank you Ozzz. I had thought it was in reverse -- shows how much some (like me...) Americans know about other countries.
I learn something new every day.

I get it now! OK... thanks so much!

Also, each county has its county town. The county town of Devon being Exeter.
Of course when it comes to the most beautiful county in England (well, in the world really,) the county town is Truro.

Exeter! RIGHT! I meant Exeter in the first place, when I said Essex... right. So now I'm even less confused than I was when I last posted. This is great.

Some traditional English counties are subdivided - Yorkshire into 3 ridings (from the old English for a third).
Lincolnshire was in 3 - one part was confusingly called Holland.

Many English counties are called Shires - they formed their name from the county town + shire.
Devon & Esses (among others) are not like this but Devon is still sometimes called Devonshire but I have never heard Essexshire used.

Southern England is divided from the kingdom of Wessex, I hope this explains it better.


[edit] Southern England
In southern England the counties were mostly subdivisions of the Kingdom of Wessex, and in many areas represented annexed, previously independent, kingdoms or other tribal territories. Kent derives from the Kingdom of Kent, and Essex, Sussex and Middlesex come from the East Saxons, South Saxons and Middle Saxons. Norfolk and Suffolk were subdivisions representing the "North Folk" and "South Folk" of the Kingdom of East Anglia. Only one county on the south coast of England now usually takes the suffix "-shire", Hampshire, which is named after the former town of "Hamwic" (sic), the site of which is now a part of the city of Southampton. Devon and Cornwall were based on the pre-Saxon Celtic kingdoms known in Latin as Dumnonia and Cornubia

Ozz, you didn't get it quite right. A Shire is the same as a county but it was one that was once controlled by a royal appointed sheriff or shire-reeve. They were almost exclusively in what is now known as the Midlands. Counties (and Shires) are sub divided into districts and these are then further divided into parishes. When the Shires were first set up by the Saxons they were divided into Hundreds. Some older maps still show these ancient boundaries.

A nominal peculiarity - Durham is often called County Durham.
There are shires in Scotland and Wales.

The situation was simple after the local government reorganisation of 1974, you had county councils which performed certain functions and the counties were made up of district councils, which performed more localised functions. Since then, all counties have been abolished in Scotland and Wales to be replaced by all purpose unitary authorities, the same has happened in London, several other big cities and other urban councils, but in some places shires and districts still exist, but unitary authorities exist as enclaves inside them. Take Devon for example, Plymouth City and Torbay Borough exist as single tier unitary authorities, whilst the other eight districts of Devon remain as part of the county, which is a lot smaller in population and a lot more rural as a result. I'm not surprised the original poster was confused, those of us who have studied local government are just as confused at some of the decisions made when they decided to alter a system that had worked well for a quarter of a century.