A county corporate or corporate county was a type of subnational division used for the administration of justice in certain towns and cities in England, Wales, and Ireland. They arose when the monarch gave a borough corporation the right to appoint its own sheriffs, separating that borough from the jurisdiction of the sheriff of the county in which it lay.
They were legally described as forming separate counties, but in both contemporary usage whilst they existed and in discussion by modern historians the counties corporate are generally distinguished from the wider counties. From Tudor times onwards lord lieutenants were appointed to oversee the militia for each county; with the exceptions of London and Haverfordwest, each county corporate was covered by the lieutenant of an adjoining county. Provisions were also made allowing court cases arising from counties corporate to be heard at the assizes for the adjoining county.
"County corporate" was not a statutory name, but was a commonly used description for such towns and cities. Other terms used included county of itself or city and county. They were similar to an independent city or consolidated city-county in other countries. The equivalent term in Scotland was a county of a city.
In England and Wales, county boroughs were created from 1889 onwards, which were similar in that they were places that were independent from their surrounding counties for local government functions. There was some overlap between the places that were counties corporate for judicial purposes and the places that were county boroughs for local government purposes. Sheriffs retained some judicial functions until 1972 when the courts system was reformed. The counties corporate were abolished in England and Wales in 1974, although some of the former counties corporate still retain the right to appoint a ceremonial sheriff.