In message
, at
11:38:43 on Wed, 30 Dec 2009, MIG
remarked:

any county is an administrative concept and its borders are
administrative and can't be anything else.

No, they can be geographic, ignoring recent administrative changes.

What is a geographic boundary of a county, unless the county is an
island or something?

Even if a geographic feature, such as a river, is chosen as the
boundary, it's still an administrative boundary. The concept of the
county doesn't come frome the river. The concept of administration
requires boundaries and the river may be chosen.

If you take the earlier example of Reading; historically north of the
river was Oxon and south of the river was Berks. More recently (fsvo) it
was decided to transfer a chunk of the town north of the river
administratively into Berks, but geographically and psychologically it's
still north of the river.
--
Roland Perry