. . . . . . . "A county, abbreviated Cnty. (US) or Co. (UK and Ireland), is a geographical region of a country used for administrative or other purposes, in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French cont\u00E9 or cunt\u00E9 denoting a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count (earl) or a viscount. The modern French is comt\u00E9, and its equivalents in other languages are contea, contado, comtat, condado, Grafschaft, Gau, etc. (cf."@en .