The boundaries dividing the territories generally coincided with church parishes. In the Catholic Church, each parish normally has its own parish priest (in some countries called pastor), who has responsibility and canonical authority over the parish. In 1807, the territorial legislature officially adopted the ecclesiastical term. According to the National Association of Counties, only one state has parishes instead of counties. In the United States, a county is an administrative or political subdivision of a state that … The only US state that uses parishes as a governmental subdivision is Louisiana. All other states call them counties.

Of the 64 parishes in the state, 41 of them have an elected government that is called a Police Jury, which also goes back to colonial times. Through each change in her history, Louisiana never deviated and the primary civil divisions have been officially known as parishes ever since. How Many States Have Parishes Instead of Counties? A parish is by definition a small administrative district typically having its own church and priest, which naturally grew out of Louisiana's heavily Roman Catholic influenced past. Prayitno / Thank you for (5 millions +) views/CC-BY 2.0. Counties are called parishes in Louisiana, but the …