Rural area
In general, a rural area or countryside is a geographic area, located outside towns and cities. The Health Resources and Services Administration of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services defines the word rural as encompassing "...all population and territory not included within an urban area. Whatever is not urban is considered rural."Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas are rural, as are other types of areas such as forest. Different countries have varying definitions of rural for administrative purposes. In Canada, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development defines a "predominantly rural region" as having more than 50% of the population living in rural communities where a "rural community" has a population density less than 150 people per square kilometre. In Canada, the census division has been used to represent "regions" and census consolidated sub-divisions have been used to represent "communities". Intermediate regions have 15 to 49 percent of their population living in a rural community.
Predominantly urban regions have less than 15 percent of their population living in a rural community. Predominantly rural regions are classified as rural metro-adjacent, rural non-metro-adjacent and rural northern, following Ehrensaft and Beeman. Rural metro-adjacent regions are predominantly rural census divisions which are adjacent to metropolitan centres while rural non-metro-adjacent regions are those predominantly rural census divisions which are not adjacent to metropolitan centres. Rural northern regions are predominantly rural census divisions that are found either or above the following lines of parallel in each province: Newfoundland and Labrador, 50th; as well, rural northern regions encompass all of Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Statistics Canada defines rural for their population counts; this definition has changed over time. It has referred to the population living outside settlements of 1,000 or fewer inhabitants; the current definition states that census rural is the population outside settlements with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants and a population density below 400 people per square kilometre.
84% of the United States' inhabitants live in suburban and urban areas, but cities occupy only 10 percent of the country. Rural areas occupy the remaining 90 percent; the U. S. Census Bureau, the USDA's Economic Research Service, the Office of Management and Budget have come together to help define rural areas. United States Census Bureau: The Census Bureau definitions, which are based on population density, defines rural areas as all territory outside Census Bureau-defined urbanized areas and urban clusters. An urbanized area consists of a central surrounding areas whose population is greater than 50,000, they may not contain individual cities with 50,000 or more. Thus, rural areas comprise open country and settlements with fewer than 2,500 residents. USDA The USDA's Office of Rural Development may define rural by various population thresholds; the 2002 farm bill defined rural and rural area as any area other than a city or town that has a population of greater than 50,000 inhabitants, the urbanized areas contiguous and adjacent to such a city or town.
The rural-urban continuum codes, urban influence code, rural county typology codes developed by USDA’s Economic Research Service allow researchers to break out the standard metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas into smaller residential groups. For example, a metropolitan county is one that contains an urbanized area, or one that has a twenty-five percent commuter rate to an urbanized area regardless of population. OMB: Under the Core Based Statistical Areas used by the OMB, a metropolitan county, or Metropolitan Statistical Area, consists of central counties with one or more urbanized areas and outlying counties that are economically tied to the core counties as measured by worker commuting data. Non-metro counties are outside the boundaries of metro areas and are further subdivided into Micropolitan Statistical Areas centered on urban clusters of 10,000–50,000 residents, all remaining non-core counties. In 2014, the USDA updated their rural / non-rural area definitions based on the 2010 Census counts.
National Center for Education Statistics revised its definition of rural schools in 2006 after working with the Census Bureau to create a new locale classification system to capitalize on improved geocoding technology. Rural health definitions can be different for establishing under-served areas or health care accessibility in rural areas of the United States. According to the handbook, Definitions of Rural: A Handbook for Health Policy Makers and Researchers, "Residents of metropolitan counties are thought to have easy access to the concentrated health services of the county's central areas. However, some metropolitan counties are so large that t
Community
A community is a small or large social unit that has something in common, such as norms, values, or identity. Communities share a sense of place, situated in a given geographical area or in virtual space through communication platforms. Durable relations that extend beyond immediate genealogical ties define a sense of community. People tend to define those social ties as important to their identity and roles in social institutions. Although communities are small relative to personal social ties, "community" may refer to large group affiliations, such as national communities, international communities, virtual communities; the English-language word "community" derives from the Old French comuneté, which comes from the Latin communitas "community", "public spirit". Human communities may share intent, resources, preferences and risks in common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness. In archaeological studies of social communities the term "community" is used in two ways, paralleling usage in other areas.
The first is an informal definition of community as a place. In this sense it is synonymous with the concept of an ancient settlement, whether a hamlet, town, or city; the second meaning is similar to the usage of the term in other social sciences: a community is a group of people living near one another who interact socially. Social interaction on a small scale can be difficult to identify with archaeological data. Most reconstructions of social communities by archaeologists rely on the principle that social interaction is conditioned by physical distance. Therefore, a small village settlement constituted a social community, spatial subdivisions of cities and other large settlements may have formed communities. Archaeologists use similarities in material culture—from house types to styles of pottery—to reconstruct communities in the past; this is based on the assumption that people or households will share more similarities in the types and styles of their material goods with other members of a social community than they will with outsiders.
In ecology, a community is an assemblage of populations of different species, interacting with one another. Community ecology is the branch of ecology that studies interactions among species, it considers how such interactions, along with interactions between species and the abiotic environment, affect community structure and species richness and patterns of abundance. Species interact in three ways: competition and mutualism. Competition results in a double negative—that is both species lose in the interaction. Predation is a win/lose situation with one species winning. Mutualism, on the other hand, involves both species cooperating in some way, with both winning; the two main types of communities are major which are self-sustaining and self-regulating and minor communities which rely on other communities and are the building blocks of major communities. In Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies described two types of human association: Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft.
Tönnies proposed the Gemeinschaft–Gesellschaft dichotomy as a way to think about social ties. No group is one or the other. Gemeinschaft stress personal social interactions, the roles and beliefs based on such interactions. Gesellschaft stress indirect interactions, impersonal roles, formal values, beliefs based on such interactions. In a seminal 1986 study, McMillan and Chavis identify four elements of "sense of community": membership, influence and fulfillment of needs, shared emotional connection. A "sense of community index was developed by Chavis and colleagues, revised and adapted by others. Although designed to assess sense of community in neighborhoods, the index has been adapted for use in schools, the workplace, a variety of types of communities. Studies conducted by the APPA indicate that young adults who feel a sense of belonging in a community small communities, develop fewer psychiatric and depressive disorders than those who do not have the feeling of love and belonging; the process of learning to adopt the behavior patterns of the community is called socialization.
The most fertile time of socialization is the early stages of life, during which individuals develop the skills and knowledge and learn the roles necessary to function within their culture and social environment. For some psychologists those in the psychodynamic tradition, the most important period of socialization is between the ages of one and ten, but socialization includes adults moving into a different environment, where they must learn a new set of behaviors. Socialization is influenced by the family, through which children first learn community norms. Other important influences include schools, peer groups, mass media, the workplace, government; the degree to which the norms of a particular society or community are adopted determines one's willingness to engage with others. The norms of tolerance and trust are important "habits of the heart," as de Tocqueville put it, in an individual's involvement in community. Community development is linked with community work or community planning, may involve stakeholders, governments, or contracted entities incl
American and British English spelling differences
Many of the differences between American and British English date back to a time when spelling standards had not yet developed. For instance, some spellings seen as "American" today were once used in Britain and some spellings seen as "British" were once used in the United States. A "British standard" began to emerge following the 1755 publication of Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language, an "American standard" started following the work of Noah Webster and in particular his An American Dictionary of the English Language, first published in 1828. Webster's efforts at spelling reform were somewhat effective in his native country, resulting in certain well-known patterns of spelling differences between the American and British varieties of English. However, English-language spelling reform has been adopted otherwise, so modern English orthography varies somewhat between countries and is far from phonemic in any country. In the early 18th century, English spelling was inconsistent.
These differences became noticeable after the publishing of influential dictionaries. Today's British English spellings follow Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language, while many American English spellings follow Webster's An American Dictionary of the English Language. Webster was a proponent of English spelling reform for reasons both nationalistic. In A Companion to the American Revolution, John Algeo notes: "it is assumed that characteristically American spellings were invented by Noah Webster, he was influential in popularizing certain spellings in America, but he did not originate them. Rather he chose existing options such as center and check for the simplicity, analogy or etymology". William Shakespeare's first folios, for example, used spellings like center and color as much as centre and colour. Webster did attempt to introduce some reformed spellings, as did the Simplified Spelling Board in the early 20th century, but most were not adopted. In Britain, the influence of those who preferred the Norman spellings of words proved to be decisive.
Spelling adjustments in the United Kingdom had little effect on today's American spellings and vice versa. For the most part, the spelling systems of most Commonwealth countries and Ireland resemble the British system. In Canada, the spelling system can be said to follow both British and American forms, Canadians are somewhat more tolerant of foreign spellings when compared with other English-speaking nationalities. Australian spelling has strayed from British spelling, with some American spellings incorporated as standard. New Zealand spelling is identical to British spelling, except in the word fiord. There is an increasing use of macrons in words that originated in Māori and an unambiguous preference for -ise endings. Most words ending in an unstressed -our in British English end in -or in American English. Wherever the vowel is unreduced in pronunciation, e.g. contour, velour and troubadour the spelling is consistent everywhere. Most words of this kind came from Latin, they were first adopted into English from early Old French, the ending was spelled -or or -ur.
After the Norman conquest of England, the ending became -our to match the Old French spelling. The -our ending was not only used in new English borrowings, but was applied to the earlier borrowings that had used -or. However, -or was still sometimes found, the first three folios of Shakespeare's plays used both spellings before they were standardised to -our in the Fourth Folio of 1685. After the Renaissance, new borrowings from Latin were taken up with their original -or ending and many words once ending in -our went back to -or. Many words of the -our/or group do not have a Latin counterpart; some 16th- and early 17th-century British scholars indeed insisted that -or be used for words from Latin and -our for French loans. Webster's 1828 dictionary had only -or and is given much of the credit for the adoption of this form in the United States. By contrast, Johnson's 1755 dictionary used -our for all words still so spelled in Britain, but for words where the u has since been dropped: ambassadour, governour, inferiour, superiour.
Johnson, unlike Webster, was not an advocate of spelling reform, but chose the spelling best derived, as he saw it, from among the variations in his sources. He preferred French over Latin spellings because, as he put it, "the French supplied us". English speakers who moved to America took these preferences with them, H. L. Mencken notes that "honor appears in the 1776 Declaration of Independence, but it seems to have got there rather by accident than by design. In Jefferson's original draft it is spelled "honour". In Britain, examples of color, behavior and neighbor appear in Old Bailey court records from the 17th and 18th centuries, whereas there are thousands of examples of their -our counterparts. One notable exception is honor. Honor and honour were frequent in Br
Megalopolis
A megalopolis is defined as a chain of adjacent metropolitan areas, which may be somewhat separated or may merge into a continuous urban region. The term was used by Patrick Geddes in his 1915 book Cities in Evolution, by Oswald Spengler in his 1918 book The Decline of the West, Lewis Mumford in his 1938 book The Culture of Cities, which described it as the first stage in urban overdevelopment and social decline, it was used by Jean Gottmann in his landmark 1961 study, Megalopolis: The Urbanized Northeastern Seaboard of the United States, to describe what is now known as the Northeast megalopolis a.k.a. BosWash; the term has been interpreted as meaning "supercity". In 1994 the magazine National Geographic featured a "Double Map Supplement: Megalopolis." of Boston to Washington Circa 1830 and on the flip-side a contemporary map of the same region to coincide with the 33 page feature article on page 2 "Breaking New Ground: Boston" by William S. Ellis Photographs Joel Sartore; the contemporary 1994 map cites the term Megalopolis being first used in 1961 to refer to the BosWash region.
Megalopolis is spelled Megapolis. Both are derived from μέγας in Greek meaning'great' and πόλις meaning'city', therefore a'great city'; because in Greek, πόλις is feminine, the etymologically correct term is megalopolis. Megalopolis in Greek means a city of exaggerated size where the prefix megalo- represents a quantity of exaggerated size; the Ancient Greek city of Megalopolis was formed by the Arcadian League by bringing together smaller communities. A megalopolis known as a megaregion, is a clustered network of cities. Gottmann defined its population as 25 million. Doxiadis defined a small megalopolis a similar cluster with a population of about 10 million. America 2050, a program of the Regional Plan Association, lists 11 megaregions in the United States and Canada. Megaregions of the United States were explored in a July 2005 report by Robert E. Lang and Dawn Dhavale of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech. A 2007 article by Lang and Nelson uses 20 megapolitan areas grouped into 10 megaregions.
The concept is based on the original Megalopolis model. Modern interlinked ground transportation corridors, such as rail and highway aid in the development of megalopolises. Using these commuter passageways to travel throughout the megalopolis is informally called megaloping; this term was coined by Stefan Berteau. In Brazil, the similar sounding terms to megaregion, are legally distinct and take on quite different meaning: Mesoregions of Brazil and Microregions of Brazil. In China, the official term corresponding to the meaning of "megalopolis" is 城市群, which means "city cluster". In Standard for basic terminology of urban planning issued in 1998, 城市群 is defined as "An area in which cities are densely distributed in a certain region" but wrongly translated as "agglomeration". In addition, there used to be no clear distinction between "megalopolis" and "metropolitan area" in Chinese context until National Development and Reform Commission issued Guidelines on the Cultivation and Development of Modern Metropolitan Areas on Feb 19, 2019 and clarified the definition of a metropolitan area.
Cairo–Giza–Qalyubia–Helwan–6th of October City, Egypt The area around the Nile is very densely populated. Nile River Delta Governorates have a combined population of 41,045,135; the total area of these Governorates is 18,199 square miles making the population density 2,255.4 per square mile. The Gauteng City Region in South Africa, which includes the urbanised portion of Gauteng Province The region in Morocco including El Jadida-Casablanca-Rabat-Salé-Kenitra, concentrating in the long coastal belt, on around 250 km with a depth of 40 to 50 km, more than 11 million inhabitants; the Nairobi Metropolitan Region consisting of the counties of in Kenya, which have a combined population of 8 million people. Note: Tijuana, Mexico is part of the Southern California megalopolis. Constituent urban areas of each megalopolis are based on reckoning by a single American organization, the Regional Plan Association; the RPA definition of the Great Lakes Megalopolis includes some Canadian metropolitan areas with the United States including some but not all major urban centres in the Windsor-Quebec City Corridor.
Note that one city, Houston, is listed in two different Megalopolis regions as defined by the RPA. The following megaregions in Colombia are expected to have nearly 93% of its population by 2030, up from the current 72%. There are 4 major megaregions in Colombia. Other sources show that another megaregion may be considered: Pearl River Delta Megalopolis a.k.a. Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area: Hong Kong, Dongguan, Foshan, Zhongshan, Macau, Huizhou. Pan-Pearl River Delta further includes provinces adjacent to Guangdong. Yangtze River Delta Megalopolis: Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Wuxi, Zhenjiang, Taizhou, Huzhou, Shaoxing, Haimen, Zhoushan, Ma'anshan Bohai Economic Rim: Beijing, Tianjin, Ans
United States
The United States of America known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U. S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D. C. and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico; the State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean; the U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The diverse geography and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.
Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century; the United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the French and Indian War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775, the subsequent Declaration of Independence in 1776; the war ended in 1783 with the United States becoming the first country to gain independence from a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, with the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, being ratified in 1791 to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties; the United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century, acquiring new territories, displacing Native American tribes, admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848. During the second half of the 19th century, the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery.
By the end of the century, the United States had extended into the Pacific Ocean, its economy, driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution, began to soar. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power; the United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country to develop nuclear weapons, the only country to use them in warfare, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Sweeping civil rights legislation, notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, outlawed discrimination based on race or color. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in the Space Race, culminating with the 1969 U. S. Moon landing; the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world's sole superpower. The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation, it is a representative democracy.
The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, other international organizations. The United States is a developed country, with the world's largest economy by nominal GDP and second-largest economy by PPP, accounting for a quarter of global GDP; the U. S. economy is post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge-based activities, although the manufacturing sector remains the second-largest in the world. The United States is the world's largest importer and the second largest exporter of goods, by value. Although its population is only 4.3% of the world total, the U. S. holds 31% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share of global wealth concentrated in a single country. Despite wide income and wealth disparities, the United States continues to rank high in measures of socioeconomic performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP, worker productivity.
The United States is the foremost military power in the world, making up a third of global military spending, is a leading political and scientific force internationally. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America in honor of the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci; the first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" is from a letter dated January 2, 1776, written by Stephen Moylan, Esq. to George Washington's aide-de-camp and Muster-Master General of the Continental Army, Lt. Col. Joseph Reed. Moylan expressed his wish to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the revolutionary war effort; the first known publication of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 6, 1776. The second draft of the Articles of Confederation, prepared by John Dickinson and completed by June 17, 1776, at the latest, declared "The name of this Confederation shall be the'United States of America'".
The final version of the Articles sent to the states for ratification in late 1777 contains the sentence "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be'The United States of America'". In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence; this draft of the document did not surface unti
Neighborhood watch
A neighborhood watch or neighbourhood watch called a crime watch or neighbourhood crime watch, is an organized group of civilians devoted to crime and vandalism prevention within a neighborhood. The aim of neighborhood watch includes educating residents of a community on security and safety and achieving safe and secure neighborhoods. However, when a criminal activity is suspected, members are encouraged to report to authorities, not to intervene. In the United States, neighborhood watch builds on the concept of a town watch from Colonial America. A neighborhood watch may be organized as its own group or may be a function of a neighborhood association or other community association. Neighborhood watches are not vigilante organizations; when suspecting criminal activities, members are encouraged to contact authorities and not to intervene. The town watch program is similar to that of the neighborhood watch, the major difference is that the Town Watch tend to patrol in pseudo-uniforms, i.e. marked vests or jackets and caps, is equipped with two way radios to directly contact the local police.
The Town Watch serves as an auxiliary to the police which provides weapons and training. The town watch returns their gear at the end of their duty. Like the town watchman of colonial America, each civilian must take an active interest in protecting his or her neighbors and be willing to give his or her time and effort to this volunteer activity; the current American system of neighborhood watches began developing in the late 1960s as a response to the rape and murder of Kitty Genovese in Queens, New York. People became outraged after reports that a dozen witnesses did nothing to save Genovese or to apprehend her killer. Inspired in part by Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which stated that Americans need to keep their "eyes on the streets" and connect with each other in their neighborhoods, national law enforcement agencies began pushing for community members to get more involved with reporting crimes at the local level; some local civilians formed groups to watch over their neighborhoods and to look out for any suspicious activity in their areas.
Shortly thereafter, the National Sheriffs' Association began a concerted effort in 1972 to revitalize the "watch group" effort nationwide. During the first few years of the program, neighborhood watch functioned as an intermediary between local law enforcement agencies and neighborhoods, to pass along information about burglaries and thefts in specific neighborhoods. Soon thereafter, the neighborhood watch became more involved and partnered with law enforcement agencies to report other types of crime as well; the neighborhood watch system gained intense media attention after the February 2012 fatal shooting of teenager Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida by George Zimmerman, an appointed neighborhood watch coordinator. Zimmerman claimed self-defense and was tried for second-degree murder and manslaughter before he was acquitted from all charges, his actions on the night of the shooting generated controversy as he exited his vehicle and was carrying a gun, both of which go against neighborhood watch recommendations.
He has been accused by prosecutors of profiling Martin, he was investigated by the United States Department of Justice for committing a racial hate crime. However, the FBI dropped its charges. Martin was black and Zimmerman is a mixed-race Hispanic. In another incident involving a neighborhood watch, Eliyahu Werdesheim, part of an Orthodox Jewish community in Maryland, was convicted in May 2012 of second-degree assault and false imprisonment for beating and pinning down a teenager he thought suspicious in 2010. Werdersheim and his brother, charged in the case but was acquitted, chose a bench trial, contending they would not get a fair trial due to the publicity over the Martin case, he was given a three-year suspended sentence and three years of probation at sentencing in June 2012. In December 2013, Werdesheim's probation was cut short, he was released at the end of the month. A June 2012 New York Times article reported that neighborhood watches in the New York City area are growing again after decades of decrease due to lower crime rates.
It said that neighborhood watch groups fell under scrutiny since the shooting of Trayvon Martin. In response to the Trayvon Martin case, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee began drafting a bill that would require neighborhood watch groups to be certified and limit their duties. With local police agencies setting guidelines for their neighborhood watches, groups across the U. S. vary in their scope, the level of activity by their members, training. Robert McCrie, professor of security management at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, disagrees with Lee's initiative, he believes that standards for neighborhood watches “are best left to the state or local community,” although he would support background checks for volunteers. Block Parent Program Citizen Observer Crimestoppers Guardian Angels National Neighborhood Watch Program National Night Out - National Association of Town Watch Natteravnene Neighbourhood Watch Inminban PubWatch Senkom Mitra Polri Shomrim Voluntary People's Druzhina Zona Protegida Neighbourhood Watch Australasia, Neighborhood Watch Programs United States Pioneerspark Neighbourhood watch Neighbourhood action group No-go area Priority board
Jefferson County, Colorado
Jefferson County is one of the 64 counties in the U. S. state of Colorado. As of the 2010 census, the population was 534,543, making it the fourth-most populous county in Colorado; the county seat is Golden, the most populous city is Lakewood. Jefferson County is included in CO Metropolitan Statistical Area. Located along the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, Jefferson County is adjacent to the state capital of Denver. In 2010, the center of population of Colorado was located in Jefferson County; the county's slogan is the "Gateway to the Rocky Mountains", it is nicknamed Jeffco. The name Jeffco is incorporated in the name of the Jeffco School District, the Jeffco Business Center Metropolitan District No. 1, several businesses located in Jefferson County. Jeffco is incorporated in the unofficial monikers of many Jefferson County agencies; the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport operated by Jefferson County was known as the Jeffco Airport. A major employer in Jefferson County is the large Coors Brewing Company in Golden.
The state-supported Colorado School of Mines is located in Jefferson County, offering programs in STEM topics such as mining, geology and engineering. On August 25, 1855, the Kansas Territorial Legislature created Arapahoe County to govern the entire western portion of the territory; the county was named for the Arapaho Nation of Native Americans. In June 22, 1850, gold was discovered along the South Platte River in Arapahoe County; this discovery precipitated the Pike's Peak Gold Rush. Many residents of the mining region felt disconnected from the remote territorial governments of Kansas and Nebraska, so they voted to form their own Territory of Jefferson on October 24, 1859; the following month, the Jefferson Territorial Legislature organized 12 counties for the new territory, including Jefferson County. Jefferson County was named for the namesake of the Jefferson Territory, Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and the nation's third president. Golden City served as the county seat of Jefferson County.
Robert Williamson Steele, Governor of the Provisional Government of the Territory of Jefferson from 1859 to 1861, built his home in the county at Mount Vernon and at Apex. The Jefferson Territory never received federal sanction, but during his last week in office, President James Buchanan signed an act which organized the Territory of Colorado on February 28, 1861; that November 1, the new Colorado General Assembly organized the 17 original counties of Colorado, including a new Jefferson County. In 1908, the southern tip of Jefferson County was transferred to Park County, reducing Jefferson County to its present length of 54 miles. Several annexations by the City & County of Denver and the 2001 consolidation of the City & County of Broomfield removed the east and extreme northwestern portion of the county, respectively. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 774 square miles, of which 764 square miles is land and 9.8 square miles is water. Jefferson County is one of the few counties in the United States to border as many as ten counties.
U. S. Highway 6 U. S. Highway 40 U. S. Highway 285 Interstate 70 State Highway 93 State Highway 470 As of the census of 2000, there were 527,056 people, 206,067 households, 140,537 families residing in the county; the population density was 683 people per square mile. There were 212,488 housing units at an average density of 275 per square mile; the racial makeup of the county was 90.59% White, 0.89% Black or African American, 0.75% Native American, 2.28% Asian, 0.08% Pacific Islander, 3.23% from other races, 2.18% from two or more races. 9.95% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. There were 206,067 households out of which 33.40% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 55.10% were married couples living together, 9.10% had a female householder with no husband present, 31.80% were non-families. 24.50% of all households were made up of individuals and 6.30% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.52 and the average family size was 3.03.
In the county, the population was spread out with 25.30% under the age of 18, 8.10% from 18 to 24, 32.10% from 25 to 44, 24.90% from 45 to 64, 9.60% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37 years. For every 100 females there were 99.00 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 96.80 males. The median income for a household in the county was $57,339, the median income for a family was $67,310. Males had a median income of $45,306 versus $32,372 for females; the per capita income for the county was $28,066. About 3.40% of families and 5.20% of the population were below the poverty line, including 5.80% of those under age 18 and 5.10% of those age 65 or over. According to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, residents of Jefferson County had a 2014 life expectancy of 80.02 years. Jefferson County School District R-1; the Federal Correctional Institution, Englewood is in unincorporated Jefferson County. The Rocky Flats Plant produced nuclear weapons in Jefferson County from 1952 until 1989.
The Jefferson County Public Library, established in 1952. The Jefferson County Government Center known as the "Taj Mahal". Chatfield State Park Golden Gate Canyon State Park Staunton State Park Pike National Forest Roosevelt National Forest Lost Creek Wilderness Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge Two Ponds National Wildlife Refuge South Platte Trail American Discovery Trail Apex National Recreation Trail Big Dry Creek National Recreation Trail Colorado Trail Platte River Greenway Nation
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