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Massachusetts Counties
Massachusetts consists of the fourteen counties. Massachusetts has abolished seven of its fourteen county governments, leaving five Counties with county-level local government (Barnstable, Bristol, Dukes, Norfolk, Plymouth) and two, Nantucket County and Suffolk County, with combined county/city government. The oldest counties still in Massachusetts are Essex County, Middlesex County, and Suffolk County, created in 1643 with the original Norfolk County which was absorbed by New Hampshire and bears no relation to the modern Norfolk County.Norfolk County, Massachusetts
Norfolk County Education, Geography, and History
Norfolk County is a county located in the state of Massachusetts. Based on the 2010 census, the population was 670,850. Its county seat is
Dedham. The county was named after the English county of the same name with the meaning "northern folk". Two towns, Cohasset and Brookline,
are exclaves.
Norfolk County is included in the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Etymology - Origin of Norfolk County Name
For the English county of Norfolk
Demographics:
County QuickFacts: CensusBureau Quick Facts
Norfolk County History
Norfolk County consists of twenty-eight eastern Massachusetts communities, mostly located to the South and West of Boston. The County was incorporated as a regional governmental entity in 1793, and has its county seat at the town of Dedham.
The county is not fully contiguous; the towns of Brookline and Cohasset are each part of Norfolk County but are
separated from the majority of Norfolk County (and each other) by either water or other counties. At the county's
formation, Hingham and Hull were to be part of it, but joined Plymouth County instead, leaving Cohasset as an enclave of
Norfolk County. Brookline became an exclave of Norfolk County in 1873 when the neighboring town of West Roxbury was
annexed by Boston (thus leaving Norfolk County to join Suffolk County) and Brookline refused to be annexed by Boston
after the Brookline-Boston annexation debate of 1873.
Geography: Land and Water
As reported by the Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 444 square miles (1,150 km2), of which, 400
square miles (1,035 km2) of it is land and 44 square miles (115 km2) of it (10%) is water.
Neighboring Counties
Bordering counties are as follows:
- Northeast: Suffolk County; North Atlantic Ocean
- Southeast: Plymouth County
- South: Bristol County
- Southwest: Providence County, R.I.
- Northwest: Worcester County; Middlesex County
Education
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