davecito
Alexandria VA 1986
Map by L. B. Prince. Alexandria, like over 100 other cities in Virginia, is an 'independent city' - politically (or in any other fashion) they are not a part of the county or counties that surround them. Towns in Virginia are a part of the county they are included in, but when a municipality incorporates into a "city" instead of a "town," it is severed from the county it had once belonged to, and becomes a completely separate entity; considered to be both a "city" and a "county-equivalent" by the US Census Department.
Virginia has a large number of extinct counties - Norfolk, Princess Anne, Nansemond, Warwick are a few - that ceased to exist when towns within those counties consolidated governments (in a total merger) with the counties they were a part of, and then reorganized into "cities." At that point - the effective date of consolidation, the town became an independent city (sometimes expanding the geographical city limits area by 90% in the process), and the county officially ceased to exist.
Alexandria VA 1986
Map by L. B. Prince. Alexandria, like over 100 other cities in Virginia, is an 'independent city' - politically (or in any other fashion) they are not a part of the county or counties that surround them. Towns in Virginia are a part of the county they are included in, but when a municipality incorporates into a "city" instead of a "town," it is severed from the county it had once belonged to, and becomes a completely separate entity; considered to be both a "city" and a "county-equivalent" by the US Census Department.
Virginia has a large number of extinct counties - Norfolk, Princess Anne, Nansemond, Warwick are a few - that ceased to exist when towns within those counties consolidated governments (in a total merger) with the counties they were a part of, and then reorganized into "cities." At that point - the effective date of consolidation, the town became an independent city (sometimes expanding the geographical city limits area by 90% in the process), and the county officially ceased to exist.