Midway Islands; Wake Island; Johnston Atoll; Navassa, Baker, Howland and Jarvis Islands; Kingman Reef; and Palmyra Atoll. In recent decennial censuses, the Census Bureau also provided statistics as State equivalents for the Canal Zone and the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (see Chapter 7, “Puerto Rico and the Outlying Areas”). The designation Commonwealth is part of the official name of four States (Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia), of Puerto Rico, and of the Northern Mariana Islands. In the interest of uniformity, the Census Bureau does not use the term for its data presentations.
For most States, counties are the primary administrative divisions. There are exceptions, however; Louisiana has parishes, while Alaska has boroughs for the organized portion of its territory. Because a large part of Alaska is not in any organized borough, the State and the Census Bureau cooperatively have subdivided the unorganized portion of Alaska into census areas for the purposes of presenting statistical data. Three States (Maryland, Missouri, and Nevada) each have one city that is governmentally independent of county organization; Virginia currently has 41 such cities. For both legal and statistical presentation purposes, these independent cities constitute primary administrative divisions of their States. Part of Yellowstone National Park in Montana is not within any county, therefore the Census Bureau treats it as the statistical equivalent of a county. The District of Columbia has no primary administrative divisions; the Census Bureau treats its entire area as the statistical equivalent of both a State and a county.
The various entities that the Census Bureau treats as the statistical equivalents of counties in Puerto Rico and the Outlying Areas (see Chapter 7 for details) are as follows:
- American Samoa—3 districts and 2 islands; the counties in American Samoa are treated as minor civil divisions
- Guam—the entire island
- The Northern Mariana Islands—4 municipalities
- Palau—16 States4-2States, Counties, Equivalent Entities
