Catoctin County is the name of a proposed new

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

in Northern Virginia that would be formed from the western portions of Loudoun County. The movement to form the new county began in 2005 with a letter to ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

''. Under the proposal, the area of Loudoun County west of the

Catoctin Mountain Catoctin Mountain, along with the geologically associated Bull Run Mountains, forms the easternmost mountain ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are in turn a part of the Appalachian Mountains range. The ridge runs northeast–southwest for ...

watershed, known as the Loudoun Valley would be separated from the portion of the county east of that watershed. The eastern portion of Loudoun would retain its name and county government.

Purcellville Purcellville is a town in Loudoun County, Virginia. The population was 8,929 according to the 2020 Census. Purcellville is the major population center for Western Loudoun and the Loudoun Valley. Many of the older structures remaining in Purcellvil ...

would become the seat of the new county's government. Its name is derived from the

whose watershed would make its eastern border and Catoctin Creek which flows through its proposed boundary. The idea of Catoctin County began as a movement to combat the rapid development of the historically rural western region of Loudoun County, one of the fastest-growing counties in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

in the 1990s. In general though, the heaviest development has been to the east of Catoctin Mountain in eastern Loudoun. Support for the movement waned, though it resurfaced in 2012 with the proposed extension of the Metro Silver Line, resulting in increased taxation on Loudoun residents.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Proposed Catocin County, Virginia website
Proposed counties of the United States Loudoun County, Virginia