Editing County (section)

===Germany===
{{Main|Districts of Germany|List of districts of Germany}}
[[File:Landkreise, Kreise und kreisfreie Städte in Deutschland 2016-11-01.svg|thumb|upright=0.5|German districts, and district-free cities (yellow) as of 2016]]

Each administrative district consists of an elected council and an executive, and whose duties are comparable to those of a county executive in the United States, supervising local government administration. Historically, counties in the [[Holy Roman Empire]] were called {{lang|de|[[Grafschaft]]en}}.
The majority of German districts are "rural districts"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/styleguide_english_dgt_country_compendium_en.pdf|archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/styleguide_english_dgt_country_compendium_en.pdf|archive-date=2022-10-09|url-status=live|title=Country Compendium, A companion to the English Style Guide|date=February 2017|publisher=European Commission Directorate-General for Translation (EC DGT)|pages=50–51}}</ref> (German: {{lang|de|Landkreise}}), of which there are 294 {{as of|2017|lc=y}}. Cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants (and smaller towns in some states) do not usually belong to a district, but take on district responsibilities themselves, similar to the concept of [[Independent city|independent cities]] and there are 107 of them, bringing the total number of districts to 401.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.destatis.de/DE/ZahlenFakten/LaenderRegionen/Regionales/Gemeindeverzeichnis/Administrativ/Aktuell/04Kreise.xls?__blob=publicationFile|title=Kreisfreie Städte und Landkreise nach Fläche und Bevölkerung auf Grundlage des ZENSUS 2011 und Bevölkerungsdichte – Gebietsstand: 31.12.2015|format=XLS|date=July 2017|publisher=[[Statistisches Bundesamt]] Deutschland|language=de|access-date=9 August 2017}}</ref>