This evening I finished recoding a list of grants from FEMA for Flood Mitigation Assistance. This dataset contains 2108 entries, and contains the following columns, among others:
| State | County | Subgrantee |
|---|---|---|
| Maryland | Garrett | Oakland, Town Of |
| Maryland | Town of Bel Air | |
| Maryland | Howard County Department of Fire Rescue Services | |
| Maryland | Worcester | Ocean City, Town Of |
Because many of the subgrantee fields are filled even when the county is not and most of the subgrantees are local government agencies, I tried to recode the counties according to FIPS 6-4, “Counties and Equivalent Entities of the United States, Its Possessions, and Associated Areas.” Local governments were recoded to their parent counties, as appropriate.
Going through this process by hand, I have some observations on the first-order divisions of states:
- There are five townships in Ohio with the name Scioto.
- There are two counties named Jeff Davis, one named Jefferson Davis, and a parish in Louisiana named Jefferson Davis.
- There are seven counties in the United States named Howard County.
- A remarkable number of states have cities and counties with the same name, but which are not near each other.