Hypothesis about New Mexico

[james_davis_nicoll]

It is not just that there's a 'mexico' in the name, it's that there are too many states to keep track of the names. How many nations have the equivalent of fifty plus provinces and territories?

Accordingly, how would you lump the states together to get a dozen or so states of roughly equal population?

Comments

[mollydot.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I didn't think it applied to France or Japan either. And if I had to guess, I would go for it the different countries in the USSR (if they were allowed legislative power), but not Russia. And the EU isn't a nation.

But don't Scotland and Northern Ireland have some legal differences to England and Wales, eg house buying, abortion, equality rules?

I'm guessing England's 82 are counties, or their successor? US states have counties too, though I've no ideal if they're legally and administrively equivalent.

And does England really have 82 things that are equivalent to NI, Scotland, Wales? Do they not have their own counties or divisions? I know NI has 6 traditional counties.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales have legal power over various matters to differing degrees:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserved_matters

It sounds to me as if Scotland now has legal status somewhat greater than a US state, the others maybe somewhat less, though it's not an exact comparison.

In the US, the status of counties varies from state to state. In some states like Virginia, incorporated cities and counties are geographically exclusive, so counties generally provide the local government in areas that are not inside of cities. In others, like Massachusetts, cities and towns geographically cover every point in the state, and counties are an overlay of larger regions whose government is nearly vestigial (controlling the court and prison systems and not much else).

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...and looking further into the matter reveals that Connecticut, Rhode Island, and portions of Massachusetts in fact have no county government at all; those counties are purely geographic divisions.

New England is a bit unusual, though.