Charlotte County, New Brunswick
Charlotte County is the most southwestern county of New Brunswick, Canada.
It was formed in 1784 when New Brunswick was partitioned from Nova Scotia and named for Queen Charlotte. Once a layer of local government, the county government was abolished with the New Brunswick Equal Opportunity program in 1966. Counties continue to be used as census subdivisions by Statistics Canada.
Located in the southwestern corner of the province, bordering the U.S. state of Maine, Charlotte County is at the northern end of the Appalachian Mountains, which gives it a rugged terrain that includes Mount Pleasant. The St. Croix, Magaguadavic, and Digdegaush rivers drain into the Bay of Fundy. The county includes the large, populated islands of Grand Manan, White Head, Deer Island, and Campobello.
Eighteen per cent of the workforce is employed in aquaculture. Connors Bros., the largest sardine canning facility in North America, is located in Blacks Harbour. Cooke Aquaculture is an Atlantic salmon farming company, founded and headquartered in St. George. A paper mill, operated by J.D. Irving, Limited, is in Utopia, and Flakeboard Co. Ltd. operates outside St. Stephen. Ganong Bros., Canada's oldest chocolate company, maintains its factory in St. Stephen.
Governance is provided by New Brunswick municipalities for the towns of Saint Andrews, St. George, and St. Stephen, the villages of Grand Manan and Blacks Harbour, and the rural community of Campobello Island. The remaining parts of the county are administered as local service districts of the Southwest New Brunswick Regional Service Commission, except Clarendon, which is part of RSC 11 in neighbouring Sunbury County.