List of counties in Massachusetts
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The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has 14 counties, though eight of these fourteen county governments were abolished between 1997 and 2000. The counties in the southeastern portion of the state retain county-level local government (Barnstable, Bristol, Dukes, Norfolk, Plymouth) or, in one case (Nantucket County), consolidated town-county government. Vestigial judicial and law enforcement districts still follow county boundaries even in the counties whose county-level government has been disestablished, and the counties are still generally recognized as geographic entities if not political ones. Three counties (Barnstable, Hampshire, and Franklin) have formed new county regional compacts to serve as a form of regional governance.
Abolitions of some county governments
Financial difficulties in the mid-1990s, including liabilities associated with the county's public hospital and default on county obligations, left Middlesex County facing insolvency. In 1997 the Massachusetts legislature intervened, abolishing the county government and transferring its assets, debts, and responsibilities to the Commonwealth. Later that year, the Franklin County Commission voted itself out of existence. The law abolishing Middlesex County also provided for the elimination of Hampden County and Worcester County on July 1, 1998. This law was later amended to abolish Hampshire County on January 1, 1999; Essex County and Suffolk County on July 1 of that same year; and Berkshire County on July 1, 2000. State law allows other counties either to abolish themselves, or to reorganize as a "regional council of governments", as Hampshire and Franklin Counties have done.
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