List of counties in Rhode Island

It has a rich history, and is known as The Plantation State, The Ocean State, or Little Rhody.
This is a list of the five counties in the U.S. state of Rhode Island. Rhode Island is tied with Hawaii for having the second lowest number of counties of any U.S. state. Delaware has fewer, with three counties. Although Rhode Island is divided into counties, it does not have any local government at the county level. Instead, local governance is provided by the eight cities and thirty-one towns. 
Within Rhode Island, Washington County is often referred to as South County.
The colony of Rhode Island was formed in the 17th century. It was the first of the thirteen original American colonies to declare independence from British rule in 1776. The counties were all established before the Declaration of Independence.
The Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) code, used by the United States government to uniquely identify states and counties, is provided with each entry. Rhode Island's code is 44. When combined with any county code is written as 44XXX. The FIPS code for each county links to census data for that county.