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A County council is the elected administrative body governing an area known as a county. This term has slightly different meanings in different countries.

In England and Wales, a county council is a council that governs a county.

County Councils were introduced in 1889 on the 22nd of September in England and Wales by the Local Government Act 1888, largely taking over the administrative functions of the unelected Quarter Sessions.^[1] The system was soon extended to Scotland, by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889, and the island of Ireland by the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898. Except in Scotland, the areas they covered were termed administrative counties and did not necessarily align with the traditional shire counties. The new system was a major modernisation, which reflected the increasing range of functions carried out by local government in late Victorian Britain. A major accretion of powers took place when education was added to County Council responsibilities after 1902.^{[citation needed]}

County councils were responsible for more strategic services in a region, with smaller urban district councils and rural district councils responsible for other activities.

The writ of the county councils did not extend everywhere: county boroughs were independent of the council for the county in which they were geographically situated, and county borough councils exercised the functions of both county councils and district councils.^[2]

In England and Wales, local government was reformed in 1974. County boroughs were abolished and all of the country (apart from Greater London) was placed in a two-tier arrangement with county councils and district councils.

Another reform in 1986 abolished the Greater London Council (which was similar but not identical to a county council) and the councils of the six metropolitan counties abolished. Their functions were transferred to the metropolitan boroughs.

In 1996 in Wales another local government reform replaced the two-tier system with an arrangement of unitary authorities, known as the principal areas of Wales. Some of these have the styling of "county council" and some have the styling "county borough council".

The 1990s in England saw the reestablishment of county boroughs in all but name, as unitary authorities. As a result of this, a further county council, that of Berkshire, was abolished, whilst others saw their territory decrease. Most of these unitary authorities were boroughs or districts, but two, Rutland and Herefordshire, correspond to traditional counties, and so their councils are known as county councils.

County Councils are very large employers with a great variety of functions including education (schools and youth services), social services, highways, fire and rescue services, libraries, waste disposal, consumer services and town and country planning. Until the 1990s they also ran Colleges of Further Education and the Careers Services. That decade also saw the privatisation of some traditional services, such as highways maintenance, cleaning and school meals.

In Scotland a major reform took place in 1975. This resulted in bodies identical in function and structure to the England and Welsh county councils; but called 'regional councils', because they covered regions instead of counties. In 1996 a further reorganisation saw the regions and districts replaced by 32 unitary council areas each with an average of just over 980 sq miles.

In the Republic of Ireland, the county councils are still around in their original form, though they have taken on the powers of rural districts after they were abolished. See Local government in the Republic of Ireland.

In the United States, most of the individual states have counties as a form of local government; in nine states, they are headed by a county council. In other states, each county is headed by a county commission or a county board of supervisors.