Maine county map

How Maine’s counties are laid out

Maine’s counties were created while it was still the District of Maine, part of Massachusetts. York County, organised by Massachusetts in 1652 as Yorkshire, is one of the oldest counties in the country; Cumberland and Lincoln followed in 1760, then Hancock and Washington in 1789 and Kennebec, Oxford and Somerset in 1799–1809. When Maine became a state in 1820 it had nine counties. Penobscot, Waldo, Piscataquis, Franklin, Aroostook and Androscoggin were added between 1816 and 1854, and Sagadahoc (1854) and Knox (1860) were the last, both cut from the older coastal counties.

The pattern is simple: small, old, populous counties along the south-west coast — York, Cumberland, Sagadahoc, Knox, Lincoln, Waldo — and huge, thinly settled counties inland and to the north. Aroostook, Piscataquis, Somerset and Penobscot together cover well over half the state, most of it commercial forest with no incorporated towns; large parts are “unorganized territory” administered directly by the state and county rather than by any municipality. Nearly every county is named for an English place or family (York, Cumberland, Lincoln, Somerset, Oxford, Hancock, Knox, Waldo), while Aroostook, Kennebec, Penobscot, Piscataquis, Sagadahoc and Androscoggin are Wabanaki river names.

Maine is entirely in the Eastern Time Zone. It has no independent cities and no consolidated city-counties; New England town government means the county’s role is limited mostly to courts, the sheriff, the registry of deeds and the jail.

All 16 counties of Maine

Five county facts

• Largest by area: Aroostook County, seat Houlton, at about 6,800 square miles the largest county east of the Mississippi. It forms the whole northern bulge of the state against New Brunswick and Quebec and is known statewide simply as “the County”; its economy is potatoes and timber, with Presque Isle and Caribou the largest towns.
• Smallest by area: Sagadahoc County, seat Bath, about 250 square miles of land at the mouth of the Kennebec River. Bath Iron Works, the state’s largest private employer, is here.
• Most populous: Cumberland County, seat Portland, with about 303,000 people in 2020 — over a fifth of Maine’s 1.36 million. York County, the coastal county nearest Boston, is second at about 212,000. Penobscot (Bangor) is the only inland county above 150,000.
• Least populous: Piscataquis County, seat Dover-Foxcroft, with fewer than 17,000 people spread over 4,000 square miles, including Moosehead Lake and Mount Katahdin, the state’s highest point at 5,269 feet. Its density is about four people per square mile.
• Oldest and newest: York County (1652) is the oldest; Knox County, seat Rockland, created in 1860 from parts of Lincoln and Waldo, is the newest. Maine has no independent cities.

Reading the map

Press Streets and zoom in to see county lines. Every coastal county from York to Washington fronts the Atlantic, and Washington County at the eastern tip, seat Machias, contains the easternmost point in the United States at West Quoddy Head, Lubec. The Kennebec River runs the length of Somerset and Kennebec counties, passing the capital Augusta; the Penobscot runs south through Penobscot County to Bangor and Penobscot Bay. The St. John River makes the northern border of Aroostook County with New Brunswick. Oxford and Franklin counties in the west hold the state’s share of the Appalachian Mountains and the northern end of the Appalachian Trail on Katahdin.

Related maps

• Maine map — cities, borders and geography.
• Blank Maine map and printable Maine map.
• Augusta, the state capital, in Kennebec County.
• Neighbouring county map: New Hampshire; also Massachusetts, which governed Maine until 1820.
• New England · the Northeast · Eastern Time Zone.
• Geography: Appalachian Mountains, US coastlines, state high points.
• All US county maps.