Connecticut Counties → Planning Regions

1. 1960

   Counties Abolished in Connecticut

   On October 1, 1960, Connecticut abolished county government. Legislation passed in 1959 and 1961 eliminated the duties and functions of the state’s eight counties, which had held limited powers even before that. The eight names most people still know Fairfield, Hartford, Litchfield, Middlesex, New Haven, New London, Tolland and Windham have been nothing but geographic regions ever since.

   That is what made the 2022 change possible. In most states a county is a real government with elected officials, courts and budgets, and it cannot simply be redrawn for statistical convenience. Connecticut’s had been lines on a map for sixty years. Louisiana uses parishes and Alaska uses boroughs in the same county-equivalent role.

2. 2022

   The Census Bureau adopts them

   Connecticut’s Office of Policy and Management petitioned the Census Bureau in August 2019. The proposal was published for comment in December 2020 and made final on 6 June 2022. From that notice, the nine planning regions — the state’s Councils of Governments, or COGs — are the county-equivalent geography for collecting, tabulating and disseminating federal statistical data, and the eight counties are not.

   This is the date the change actually happened. The Bureau completed its geographic updates in the spring of 2022 and shipped the first geospatial products carrying planning regions in late summer 2022. They arrived with new names and new five-digit FIPS codes, and the towns underneath them were renumbered too.

   Planning Region FIPS Code	Planning Region Name/Title	Short Name
   09110	Capitol	CRCOG
   09120	Greater Bridgeport	CTMetro
   09130	Lower Connecticut River Valley	RiverCOG
   09140	Naugatuck Valley	Naugatuck Valley
   09150	Northeastern Connecticut	NECCOG
   09160	Northwest Hills	Northwest Hills
   09170	South Central Connecticut	SCRCOG
   09180	Southeastern Connecticut	SECCOG
   09190	Western Connecticut	Western CT

3. 2023

   The statistical system rebuilds around them

   On 21 July 2023 the Office of Management and Budget reissued every Core Based Statistical Area delineation in the country against the new geography, in OMB Bulletin 23-01. Connecticut’s metropolitan and micropolitan areas are built from planning regions from that point on. A CBSA lookup started returning different answers a full year before anything postal changed.

   Later the same year, Population Estimates and American Community Survey releases began carrying planning regions as well. Anyone joining Census demographics to a county column in 2023 was already joining against a geography their own address data did not yet use.

4. 2024

   The rest of the federal system catches up

   There was never a single switchover date. Each series moved at its own boundary during 2024: the Bureau of Labor Statistics broke its Connecticut QCEW series between the fourth quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024, and the USDA moved for the 2024 crop insurance reinsurance year. The USPS was last, planning regions arrived in its July 2024 data release, two years after the Census Bureau adopted them.

   That last date is the one that matters on this page. Our ZIP Code and ZIP+4 products are built from the postal file, so July 2024 is the month they began reporting the planning region in place of the historical county. The crosswalks below exist to give that county back. The change is permanent. The old counties are not coming back to any federal data product.

   Below are several maps prepared that can be used to see the relation of Towns, Historical Counties, Planning Regions, and even ZIP Codes.

Interactive Connecticut Boundary Map

Toggle ZIP Codes, towns, historical counties and planning regions over each other. Hover any area for details — or just type where you are, below.

Click any region, county or town on the map for the detail.