Template:Infobox U.S. county/doc

Infobox U.S. county is the standard infobox used for all county articles in the United States.

Other templates that are helpful for U.S. County articles:
 * USCensusPop - lists the population of the county per decade.
 * Coord - a cool template that displays the coordinates of the county. Notes about this one:

View Template:Infobox U.S. county/Sample to see how this infobox is rendered.

Usage
This blank template excludes some optional parameters that must be omitted if not used (will not work properly if left blank), plus some older parameters that still work but have been replaced by newer parameter names. It also excludes square kilometer (km2) parameters that are automatically calculated (replace "_sq_mi" with "_km2" to enter square kilometers instead and have the square miles calculated). See the parameter documentation below for more details.

The parameters are listed in the order displayed by the infobox. The exception is latitude and longitude which are not placed in the infobox, but are displayed on the upper right side of the page via the coord template.

Parameters
The parameters below are listed in the order displayed by the infobox. The exception is latitude and longitude which are not placed in the infobox, but are displayed on the upper right side of the page via the coord template.

Name
These parameters specify the name of the county and state and are displayed in the infobox title as "County, State" (IMPORTANT: do not WikiLink these with  because they are used for other purposes in the template code).
 * county           : the county name including the word "County", i.e. Dorchester County
 * state            : the state name, i.e. Maryland

County seal
An image of the county seal can be displayed near the top of the infobox, immediately below the title. Use only the file name, without the Image: or File: prefix.
 * seal             : (optional) County seal image (name only), i.e. Dorchester County md seal.png
 * seal size        : (optional) Allows changing image size from 75px default (IMPORTANT: omit this parameter if not used; leaving it blank will cause the image to display full size)

Location maps
The infobox automatically displays two maps based based on the names entered for the county and state parameters.
 * 1) A map of the state highlighting the location of the county. The infobox template provides the correct map for each county; the image names use the format "Map of (state) highlighting (county).svg". The image size defaults to 200px, with the following exceptions: 110px for New Hampshire; 120px for Alabama, Mississippi, New Jersey, Vermont; 130px for Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Nevada; 180px for Ohio.
 * 2) A map of the United States highlighting the location of the state. The infobox template provides the correct map for each state, most of these are in the format "Map of USA XX.svg" where XX is the two letter state abbreviation (i.e. MD for Maryland).

Date founded
The old way of specifying this was via the founded parameter. Although that still works, the new method is via the following parameters.
 * founded year     : syntax is: 1894
 * founded date     : (optional) syntax is: February 1
 * founded title    : (optional) text to replace the default heading "Founded"  (IMPORTANT: omit this parameter if not used; leaving it blank will cause a blank box to left of year)

County seat
The old way of specifying this was via the seat parameter. Although that still works, a new method that automatically generates the WikiLink is shown below.
 * seat wl          : name of county seat; the wikilink is created for you: "City" results in " City "

Largest city
The old way of specifying this was via the largest city parameter. Although that still works, a new method that automatically generates the WikiLink is shown below.
 * largest city wl  : (optional) name of largest city; the WikiLink created for you: "City" results in " City " (unless this is the same as county seat, in which case no link is created)
 * city type        : (optional) text to replace "City" in the heading; i.e. "Village" results a heading of "Largest Village"

County motto

 * motto            : (optional) the county motto

Area
Enter all numbers (except percentage) in raw format (i.e. 10000 not 10,000).
 * area_total_sq_mi : total area in square miles; km2 will be calculated automatically
 * area_total_km2   : (optional) if specified, the square miles will be calculated automatically
 * area_land_sq_mi  : total land area in square miles; km2 will be calculated automatically
 * area_land_km2    : (optional) if specified, the square miles will be calculated automatically
 * area_water_sq_mi : total water area in square miles; km2 will be calculated automatically
 * area_water_km2   : (optional) if specified, the square miles will be calculated automatically
 * area percentage  : (optional) the percentage of water, i.e. 2.4% (no automatic calculation at this time, so manually divide the water area by the total area)

Population
Enter all numbers in raw format (i.e. 10000 not 10,000).
 * pop               : the population of the county
 * census yr         : the census year for the given population, i.e. 2000 - the year is linked to the U.S. census article in the format "United States Census, (year)", i.e. "United States Census, 2000"
 * census estimate yr : (optional) to be used in place of census yr for years when no U.S. census was taken; i.e. 2006 - this displays "Est." next to the year and avoids a "red link" since there is no article for "United States Census, 2006"

Population density
Population density is the number of people per square mile or km2. Must be entered manually, as the template does not currently support automatic calculations based on population divided by area.
 * density_sq_mi     : population per square mile, i.e. 5000, which displays "5,000/sq mi (21/km²)"; population/km2 will be calculated automatically
 * density_km2       : (optional) population per km2; if specified, the population/sq mi is calculated automatically

Time zone
The template generates standard headings for U.S. time zones.
 * time zone        : Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific, Alaska, or Hawaii. If entering anything else, use the old UTC offset and DST offset parameters. There should be no reason to choose other options, as currently those are the only time zones used in the United States.
 * Eastern: Eastern: UTC-5/-4
 * Central: Central: UTC-6/-5
 * Mountain: Mountain: UTC-7/-6
 * exception for Arizona = Mountain: UTC-7
 * Pacific: Pacific: UTC-8/-7
 * Alaska:  Alaska: UTC-9/-8
 * Hawaii:  Hawaii-Aleutian: UTC-10
 * (other):  : /

U.S. Congressional Districts
Used to generate a list of United States congressional districts (U.S. House of Representatives) in the county. The article names are in the format "(state)'s (district) congressional district", i.e. Alabama's 1st congressional district or Delaware's At-large congressional district. The template handles proper placement of the apostrophe in the article name for states ending in the letter "s" (Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Texas).
 * district         : (optional) use ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, etc.) or At-large
 * district2        : (optional) same as above, used when county lies in more than one district
 * district3        : (optional) the parameter names continue in this format up to district18

Official county web site

 * web              : (optional) url for website, without "http://" and brackets, i.e. www.LaPorteCounty.org (template automatically generates external link)

Source of county name

 * named for        : (optional) text describing meaning of county's name

County flag
An image of the county flag can be displayed near the top of the infobox. Use only the file name, without the Image: or File: prefix.
 * flag             : (optional) county flag image (name only), i.e. Dorchester County flag.png
 * flag size        : (optional) allows changing image size from 100px default (IMPORTANT: omit this parameter if not used; leaving it blank will cause the image to display full size)

County logo
An image of the county logo can be displayed near the top of the infobox. Use only the file name, without the Image: or File: prefix.
 * logo             : (optional) county logo image (name only), i.e. Dorchester County logo.png
 * logo size        : (optional) allows changing image size from 100px default (IMPORTANT: omit this parameter if not used; leaving it blank will cause the image to display full size)

Extra image
An additional image, depicting the skyline or other landmarks within a county, can be displayed near the top of the infobox. Use only the file name, without the Image: or File: prefix.
 * ex image         : (optional) extra image (name only), i.e. Dorchester County courthouse.jpg
 * ex image size    : (optional) allows changing image size from 200px default (IMPORTANT: omit this parameter if not used; leaving it blank will cause the image to display full size)
 * ex image cap     : (optional) a caption displayed in small text below the extra image

Latitude and longitude
These parameters are used to place geographic coordinates in the upper right corner of the page (outside the infobox) via the coord template. The latitude and longitude must be whole degrees and minutes (displayed 38°25′N, 76°05′W). If entering degrees only, the minutes default to zero.

NOTE: These parameters do not currently support decimal degrees (displayed 38.42, -76.08) or whole degrees with decimal minutes (displayed 38°25.9', -76°05.4' or 38°25.9'N, 76°05.4'W).


 * lat deg          : (optional) degrees of latitude North, i.e. 38
 * lat min          : (optional) minutes of latitude North, i.e. 25 (defaults to zero if omitted)
 * long deg         : (optional) degrees of longitude West, i.e. 76 or 076 (do not prefix this with "-" as that will display latitude East)
 * long min         : (optional) minutes of longitude West, i.e. 5 or 05 (defaults to zero if omitted)

In some cases it may be preferable to omit the latitude/longitude parameters and manually add the coord template to the article. The following is an example that includes decimal degrees, displays them in D/M/S format, and notes the source of the coordinates:

Microformat
it:Template:Contea USA