Editing List of counties in New Jersey (section)

==History==
{{see also|History of New Jersey}}
New Jersey was governed by two groups of proprietors as two distinct provinces, [[East Jersey]] and [[West Jersey]], between 1674 and 1702. New Jersey's first counties were created as administrative districts within each province, with East Jersey split in 1675 into [[Bergen County, New Jersey|Bergen]], [[Essex County, New Jersey|Essex]], [[Middlesex County, New Jersey|Middlesex]] and [[Monmouth County, New Jersey|Monmouth]] counties, while West Jersey's initial counties of [[Burlington County, New Jersey|Burlington]] and [[Salem County, New Jersey|Salem]] date to 1681.<ref name="NJAEO">{{cite web|url=http://www.njaeo.us/County%20Formation%20Map.pdf|title=County Formation Map|publisher=New Jersey Association of Election Officials|access-date=August 30, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070724020953/http://www.njaeo.us/County%20Formation%20Map.pdf|archive-date=July 24, 2007|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Torp">{{cite web|url=http://genealogytrails.com/njer/countyformation.html|title=New Jersey County Formation|last=Torp|first=Kim|year=2006|publisher=Genealogy Trails|access-date=August 30, 2009|archive-date=March 17, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210317052352/http://genealogytrails.com/njer/countyformation.html|url-status=live}}</ref> The most recent county created in New Jersey is [[Union County, New Jersey|Union County]], created in 1857 and named after the union of the United States when the [[American Civil War|Civil War]] was imminent. New Jersey's county names derive from several sources, though most of its counties are named after place names in [[England]] and prominent leaders in the colonial and revolutionary periods. [[Bergen County, New Jersey|Bergen County]] is the most populous county—as of the 2020 Census—with 955,732 people, while [[Salem County, New Jersey|Salem County]] is the least populous with 64,837 people.