Maine County Map: All 16 Counties

Known formally as the Unorganized Territory of Maine, this 9.3-million-acre region spans across northern and western counties including Aroostook, Piscataquis, Somerset, and Franklin. Comprising over 400 numbered survey townships, coastal islands, and unorganized plantations, it is home to fewer than 9,000 year-round residents.

Rather than county commissioners, land use planning, permitting, and building codes are governed by the Maine Land Use Planning Commission (LUPC), an agency within the state Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry. State police provide primary law enforcement, and the state Department of Education funds tuition for remote students to attend neighboring town schools.

County commissioners in these regions serve a specialized fiscal role: they prepare annual unorganized territory budgets submitted to the State Tax Assessor, who levies a uniform statewide municipal cost assessment property tax.

Before achieving statehood in 1820, Maine existed as the District of Maine within Massachusetts. York County, established in 1636, is the oldest continuously operating government subdivision in northern New England, originally organized under Sir Ferdinando Gorges' royal patent.

During the War of 1812, British forces occupied eastern Maine (modern Washington and Hancock counties) without significant defense from the Massachusetts state militia in Boston, sparking intense resentment that fueled the statehood separation movement led by William King.

Today, Maine's coastal counties—Cumberland, York, Sagadahoc, Lincoln, Knox, Waldo, Hancock, and Washington—support Maine's multi-billion-dollar lobster fishery, deepwater shipbuilding at Bath Iron Works, and Acadia National Park in Mount Desert Island.