List of fictional counties

Fictional counties are created by an author for character placement and story background.

United Kingdom

• Barnfordshire - fictional county cricket club in Viz one-off comic strip, The Wicketkeeper Had Tits
• Barsetshire – locale of Anthony Trollope's Chronicles of Barsetshire novel series; also used by various other authors
• Borsetshire - containing the village of Ambridge, in the BBC's long-running radio drama The Archers
• Burton - Earldom near Northumberland on the borders of Scotland and Lancashire, created by Rebecca Gablé
• Diddlesex – used in the satirical Punch magazine in the 1840s as the abode of an ex-servant who becomes rich
• Downshire – location of the village of St. Mary Mead in The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie (also stated to be in Radfordshire). Downshire can sometimes refer to the real County Down.
• Ffhagdiwedd – County Borough of South East Wales which forms the setting for Waliens, a novel by R.W. Finlan and Darren Bowker-Powis
• Glebeshire – the setting of many of Hugh Walpole's novels
• Glenshire – location of the seaside resort of Dilmouth in The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie
• Loamshire – generic rural English county, home of the Loamshire Regiment; used by George Eliot among other authors. In Donald Jack's play The Canvas Barricade, the butler is the rightful Duke of Loamshire. Kenneth Tynan was critical of a type of play he called 'the Loamshire play', an English middle-class country-house drama. He claimed this was almost the only type of play being written in 1950s Britain.
• Mangelwurzelshire – in The Book of Snobs by William Makepeace Thackeray
• Markshire – used in Tragedy at Law and An English Murder by Cyril Hare
• Mallardshire – setting of one episode of Count Duckula
• Melfordshire – location of Market Basing in By the Pricking of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie
• Mertonshire – setting of "The Horses of Diomedes" in The Labours of Hercules by Agatha Christie
• Middleshire – used as a setting in Red Pottage by Mary Cholmondeley and Hercule Poirot's Christmas and A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie
• Mortshire – used in the works of Edward Gorey
• Midsomer – setting of Midsomer Murders
• 'Mummerset - county named for the non-specific West Country accent affected by actors
• Naptonshire – setting for Home Defence training simulations of the 1970s,^[1] analogous to Northamptonshire
• Oatshire – in Paper Lives by Compton Mackenzie; borders North Wessex
• Placefordshire – location of the City of Town in the Sky 1 comedy police procedural series A Touch of Cloth
• Quantumshire – from Nebulous
• Radfordshire – the setting for St. Mary Mead in some of the Miss Marple novels and short stories by Agatha Christie: but also stated to be Downshire. This county is close to or borders the fictional counties of Glenshire, Southshire and Middleshire.
• Redshire – represented in a map in the Massively Multiplayer Online Game World of Tanks.
• Russetshire – location of the Rumshott estate in Rory Clark's Country Estate series
• Rutshire – setting of the Rutshire Chronicles by Jilly Cooper
• Shiring - Earldom in Ken Follet's The Pillars of the Earth
• Shroudshire – county mentioned in the American sitcom The Munsters
• Slopshire – county in the West Country containing Puddleby-on-the-Marsh, home of Doctor Dolittle
• Southmoltonshire – rural county containing Rowcester Abbey in the novel Ring for Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
• South Riding of Yorkshire – setting for South Riding by Winifred Holtby
• Stonyshire – adjacent to Loamshire in Adam Bede by George Eliot
• Trumptonshire – setting of the interrelated TV series Camberwick Green, Trumpton, and Chigley
• Wessex – location of Thomas Hardy's novels
• Westershire – setting of Pie in the Sky
• Waringham - Earldom in Kent, main location of the Waringham series by Rebecca Gablé
• Westshire – setting of Dead Man's Mirror by Agatha Christie and the Inspector Wilkins novels of James Anderson; location of Wandlebury in the novels of D. E. Stevenson
• Winshire – setting of The Midwich Cuckoos
• Wordenshire – home of The Knight in DC Comics
• Worfordshire or South Worfordshire – the setting in English/Welsh borderlands for the novel Blott on the Landscape by Tom Sharpe
• Wyvern, containing the city of Holby (based on Bristol), the setting for BBC drama productions Casualty, Holby City, and HolbyBlue

Republic of Ireland

• County Ring – From Podge & Rodge: A Scare At Bedtime by Radio Telefís Éireann
• Glenarvon – Setting of the Nazi propaganda film The Fox of Glenarvon, located somewhere in the northwest of Galway

United States

• Alabama
  • Beechum County – setting of the film My Cousin Vinny
  • Cotton County – location of the film Crazy in Alabama
  • Greenbow County – in the film Forrest Gump
  • Maycomb County – setting for Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird
• Alaska
  • Arrowhead County, containing Cicely, the setting of Northern Exposure. (As Alaska has no counties, later seasons mentioned "the Borough of Arrowhead County".)
• Arizona
  • Natosha County, with sheriff Lyle Wallace in the film Convoy.
• California
  • Balboa County – location of Neptune in Veronica Mars
  • Beacon County – setting for Teen Wolf
  • Clark County – setting for Pineapple Express and Superbad
  • Jackfield County – a rural county in the CBS TV Series Extant.
  • East Bay County – location of Berkeley in Parenthood (Berkeley is a real city in Alameda County, within the informal East Bay region)
  • Hill County – setting of the Back to the Future films, includes the towns of Hill Valley, Elmdale and Haysville
  • Livermore County – setting of some activity in Tom Wolfe's A Man in Full. Represents southeastern Alameda County, California, where Livermore is located.
  • Oak County – northern coastal county in the Fox Miniseries Gracepoint where the titular town is located.
• Florida
  • Calusa County – home base of defense attorney Matthew Hope, created by mystery author Ed McBain
  • Oklawaha County – setting for Gamble Rogers' songs and stories
• Georgia
  • Chickasaw County – location used on the television series The Dukes of Hazzard
  • Dougal County – the rural setting of Squidbillies
  • Grant County – setting of novels by Karin Slaughter
  • Hazzard County – setting of the television series The Dukes of Hazzard
  • Paraquat County – setting of the films The Ugly Dachshund and Smokey Bites the Dust
  • King County – home of Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead TV series
  • Linden County – neighbours King County in The Walking Dead TV series
  • Mert County – county located in an unspecified part of Georgia in The Walking Dead TV series
• Hawaii
  • Pineapple County – mentioned in episodes of Rocket Power, situated on an unspecified island
• Indiana
  • Raintree County – setting of Ross Lockridge, Jr.'s novel Raintree County
  • Wamapoke County – location of Pawnee, the setting of Parks and Recreation
• Iowa
  • Pierce County – rural setting of the 2010 horror film The Crazies. The county seat is the town of Ogden Marsh and is policed by the Pierce County Sheriff's Department. It is located close to Cedar Rapids.
• Kansas
  • Fillmore County – the rural setting of Jericho
• Kentucky
  • New Kent County – the setting of 'The State' series of novels by Jon Strunk; based on New Kent County, VA.; serves as a stand-in for McCreary County, KY, where Strunk was born.
  • Crow County – the setting of Silas House's novels Clay's Quilt, A Parchment of Leaves, and The Coal Tattoo
• Louisiana
  • Chinquapin Parish – setting for Steel Magnolias
  • Renard Parish – setting for True Blood
  • Belle Reve Parish – a location in the DC Comics Universe that contains the Bell Reve Penitentiary.
  • Trapingus Parish – primary setting of the 1999 drama The Green Mile.
  • Sang Tholis Parish – briefly seen in the Cinemax TV series Banshee said to be located close to New Orleans. "Sang" is the French word for "blood", but "tholis" is not a French word.
• Maine
  • Castle County – location of Castle Rock and Castle View
  • Kennebago County - Setting of the film Pet Sematary 2
• Maryland
  • Ramilly County – F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise
• Minnesota
  • Herndon County – workplace of Ruth Harrison, the contentious reference librarian whose adventures are occasionally featured on A Prairie Home Companion
  • Ironwood County – the setting for the Ironwood County novels by John Schreiber.
  • Mist County – the county seat is Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon
• Massachusetts
  • Blithe Hollow County – setting of the animated film Paranorman
• Mississippi
  • Caldecott County – home of the Marvel Comics character Rogue
  • Ford County – the setting of many of John Grisham's novels, as well as a collection of short stories
  • Yoknapatawpha County – in the works of William Faulkner
• New Jersey
  • Huntington County – the setting of the wealthy town of Vlyvalle in Dirk Wittenborn's novel Fierce People; possibly based on Hunterdon County.
• North Carolina
  • Beechum County – location of the jail where Beca is released about the regionals in Pitch Perfect
  • Mayberry County – setting of Mayberry in The Andy Griffith Show
• Oklahoma
  • Cash County – location of Vernon, setting for several mystery novels by former U.S. Senator Fred R. Harris (not to be confused with the real Vernon, Oklahoma)
• Oregon
  • Johnson County – home of Sgt. Bob Johnson in the film A Canterbury Tale. His grandfather built the first Baptist church in the county.
  • Wilbur County – rural county in Central Oregon which is the setting for the multi-blog fiction The Germaine Truth by Duane Poncy and Patricia J. McLean
• Pennsylvania
  • Banshee County – Rural county which serves as the setting of the Cinemax TV series Banshee. The county seat is the town of Banshee, and the county is also home to a large Amish community, the Kinaho Native American reservation and Camp Genoa, a USMC Operating Base. It is policed by the Banshee County Sheriffs Department.
  • Lantenango County - a fictionalized version of Schuylkill County, and the setting of a number of the novels and many of the short stories of John O'Hara. The county seat of Lantenango County is Gibbsville, which is itself a barely fictionalized version of Pottsville, the actual county seat of Schuylkill County, and O'Hara's home town.
• Texas
  • Arlen County – pilot episode of King of the Hill; afterward the name of the county was changed to Heimlich
  • Belken County – Rio Grande Valley setting of Rolando Hinojosa-Smith's novels of the Klail City Death Trip Series (KCDTS)
  • Blackwood County – scenes from X-Files: Fight the Future
  • Braddock County – site of the Southfork Ranch on the TV show Dallas
  • Castle County – Good Sheriff Tiger's Site Town in A Small Town in Texas
  • Clarke County – space station in Allen M. Steele's 1990 novel "Clarke County, Space"
  • Dammering County – Crook Sheriff Duke's Site Town in A Small Town in Texas
  • Heimlich County – setting of the television series King of the Hill, includes the towns of Arlen and McMaynerbury.
• Vermont
  • Battenkill County – site of a suspicious violent death in Donna Tartt's novel The Secret History, named after the Battenkill River
  • Kingdom County – setting of many works by Howard Frank Mosher; approximates the Northeast Kingdom
• Virginia
  • Faulconer County – a setting of the Starbuck Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell
  • Jefferson County – setting of the television series The Waltons
  • Stoolbend County – home to Stoolbend in The Cleveland Show
• Washington
  • Wheaton County - setting of Golddiggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain
• West Virginia
  • Whitman County – one of two West Virginia locations (the other being the existing Wyoming County) in Jonathan Franzen's novel Freedom.
• Wisconsin
  • Wanker County – rural county in Married... with Children, birthplace of Peg Bundy (née Wanker)
• Wyoming
  • Absaroka County – the rural county policed by Sheriff Longmire in the 2012 TV series Longmire
• Unspecified/fictional states
  • Bardach County – setting of the 1995 film Se7en, with 'Bardach County Jail' being seen on a prisoners jumpsuit. Likely named after the films costume designer, Elinor Bardach.
  • Bloom County – rural setting of the comic strip Bloom County and its sequels
  • Bogen County – home of the Bogen County Fair and the 'Miss Bogen County' beauty pageant, won by "Miss Piggy" in The Muppet Movie
  • Camden County – setting for television show My Name is Earl
  • Campbell County – the county where Odyssey is located, on the radio show Adventures in Odyssey
  • Carburetor County – location of Radiator Springs in Cars; a map shown in a flashback places this in a location similar to Peach Springs, Arizona, but the settlement itself is a composite of places along U.S. Route 66 in multiple states.
  • Cobblestone County – the home of Bedrock in The Flintstones
  • Kindle County – the Midwestern setting for most Scott Turow novels
  • Konoma County – the home of Willie Stark in All the King's Men
  • Kornfield Kounty – setting of variety show Hee Haw
  • Mississinewa County – (through which flows the Mississinewa River), in the poems of Jared Carter
  • Moose County – "400 miles north of everywhere", the setting of Lillian Jackson Braun's Cat Who... stories
  • Papen County – setting of Pushing Daisies, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest or New England
  • Seacrest County – setting of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010 video game), located somewhere along the US West Coast.
  • Spittle County – rural county from The Simpsons television series. Birthplace and home of Lurleen Lumpkin.
  • Stevenston County – from Scary Movie

Orbital

• Clarke County, Space – from the novel Clarke County, Space by Allen Steele

See also

• List of fictional U.S. states

References

1. Hartley, David A.; Johnson, Philip V.; Fitzsimons, Anne; Lovell, Jenny; Chippendale, Brian; Clayton, John K. S. (1 January 1979). "A Case Study on the Development of the Home Defence Training Game HOT SEAT". The Journal of the Operational Research Society. 30 (10): 861–871. doi:10.2307/3009541. JSTOR 3009541.