The Canadian province of

Prince Edward Island Prince Edward Island (PEI; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is the smallest province in terms of land area and population, but the most densely populated. The island has several nicknames: "Garden of the Gulf", ...

has three counties that have historically been used as administrative divisions for the provincial government, and prior to

Confederation A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a union of sovereign groups or states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issu ...

(in 1873), the colonial government. The current system of land division in Prince Edward Island, including its three counties, dates to a series of surveys undertaken in 1764-65 by Captain Samuel Holland of the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

Corps of Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

. Holland's survey saw the island divided into the three counties, each of which had a "royalty" (or

shire town A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. The equivalent term shire town is used in the US st ...

) as a county seat. The rest of the county outside the royalty was sub-divided into parishes for the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

, measuring approximately ; the parishes were further sub-divided into townships measuring approximately . The counties are no longer used as administrative boundaries for the provincial government; however, they continue to be used as census divisions by Statistics Canada for statistical purposes in administering the

Canadian census Statistics Canada conducts a national census of population and census of agriculture every five years and releases the data with a two-year lag. The Census of Population provides demographic and statistical data that is used to plan public servic ...

References

{{Reflist

Counties 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 ...

See also

References