Administrative county

An administrative county (pronounced: add-mini-stray'-tive, count-e) was an old way of dividing up the land in a country that was once used in England and Wales, beginning in 1888 and also in Ireland, beginning in 1898. It was used for local government reasons. They do not exist anymore, except in Northern Ireland where their old areas are used as the areas for lieutenancy. They were also once used in Scotland for government reasons but they were not real names that the people who lived in an area called it except when talking to the government. They stopped being used in England and Wales in 1974, and stopped in Scotland in 1975.