{{infobox Chinese |t=附郭縣 |s=附郭县 |p=fùguōxiàn |w=fu-kuo-hsien<br>fu-kou hsien |altname= |l=county attached to a city wall |t2=倚郭縣 |s2=倚郭县 |p2=yǐguōxiàn |w2=i-kuo-hsien<br>i-kuo hsien |l2=county leaning against a city wall }}

An '''attached county'''{{sfnp|Zhao|2019|p=2058}}{{sfnp|Zhao|2022|p=44}} or '''satellite county''',{{sfnp|Hua|Buell|2016|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=jUxeDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA330 330]}} sometimes left untranslated in its Chinese name as a '''''fuguoxian''''',{{sfnp|Wang|Zhuang|Wu|Zhou|2012|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=FfW5BQAAQBAJ&pg=PA24 24]}} was a kind of historical tertiary administrative division in late Imperial China. It was a ''xian'' (generally translated for this period as "county" in English) based within the capital of a ''fu'' (generally translated for this period as "prefecture").

As such, many of the county magistrate's usual duties and powers were subordinated to the prefectural administration and he was subject to much closer supervision than usual. Although an attached county was given first rank among the divisions of a prefecture and known as the "head county",<ref name=":0" /> the position was avoided by most scholar-bureaucrats. A Qing proverb held that, "If you had done something bad in your previous incarnation, you would be an average magistrate now; if you had done something worse, you would be a magistrate of a prefectural attached county; but if you had done something worst, you would be a magistrate of a provincial attached county" ("{{lang|zh|前生不善，今生知縣；前生作惡，知縣附郭；惡貫滿盈，附郭省城}}").<ref>{{Cite book|title=歸田瑣記|last=Liang|first=Zhangju|publisher=Zhonghua Book Company|year=1981|isbn=9787101017465|location=|pages=136–7}}</ref>

==History== Since the Yuan dynasty, some ''zhou'' (smaller prefectures) began to be compact to dissolve their attached counties, thus they had direct authority over their walled cities along with environs (namely, ''zhou'' proper), rather than via any county. Since the Ming dynasty, all the attached counties of ''zhou'' (subprefectures) were eliminated.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite book|title=中国地方行政制度史|last=Zhou|first=Zhenhe|publisher=Shanghai People's Publishing House|year=2005|isbn=9787208056541|location=|pages=206}}</ref>

Under the Ming and Qing, it was standard for every prefecture to have an attached county with a limited role within and around the prefectural capital.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=The City in Late Imperial China|last=Skinner|first=William|publisher=|year=1977|isbn=9780804708920|location=|pages=}}</ref>

There were, generally, multiple attached counties in larger prefectures: three and four in one instance, respectively (Suzhou in Qing, since 1724: Wu, Changzhou and Yuanhe; Jingzhao in Tang, since the late 660s: Chang'an, Wannian, Qianfeng, and Mingtang), two in all others. In such cases, their boundary ran through the walled city, and their owned yamen were sited in the appropriate sectors.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=http://ex.cssn.cn/zgs/zgs_zms/201711/t20171128_3756652.shtml|title=附郭县两千余年的历史变迁|last=Zhao|first=Yicai|website=ex.cssn.cn|access-date=2018-06-22}}</ref>

Some attached counties are reserved so far. However, with urbanization, many of them have been merged,<ref name=":1" /> similar to the consolidated city-county in the US.

==References== ===Citations=== {{Reflist|30em}}

===Bibliography=== * {{citation |title=Ben Cao Gang Mu Dictionary, ''Vol. II:'' Geographical and Administrative Designations |editor=Hua Linfu |editor2=Paul D. Buell |editor3=Paul U. Unschuld |display-editors=1 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Oakland |date=2017 |author=Li Shizhen |isbn=9780520291966 |author-link=Li Shizhen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jUxeDQAAQBAJ }}. * {{cite book |last1=Hua |first1=Linfu |last2=Buell |first2=Paul D. |title=Dictionary of the Ben Cao Gang Mu, Volume 2: Geographical and Administrative Designations |date=2016 |publisher=Univ of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-29196-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jUxeDQAAQBAJ |language=en}} * {{citation |editor=Chen Hsin-hsi |editor2=Gobinda Chowdhury |display-editors=0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FfW5BQAAQBAJ |title=The Outreach of Digital Libraries: A Globalized Resource Network... |publisher=Springer |location=Heidelberg |date=2012 |contribution=An Ontology-Based Fuzzy Matching Approach to Semantic Retrieval of Historical Place Names |last1=Wang |first1=Chao |last2=Zhuang |first2=Ling |last3=Wu |first3=Jiangqin |last4=Zhou |first4=Feng |pages=19–28 |isbn=9783642347528 |display-authors=1 }}. * {{citation |last=Zhao |first=Yicai |contribution=Historical Reference and Optimization Reform of the Spatial Subordination Relationship of City and County in China |title=Geographical Research |volume=38 |issue=8 |date=2019 |pages=2058–2067 }}. * {{citation |last=Zhao |first=Yicai |contribution=Two Special Forms of Attached Counties in [the] Traditional Chinese System |title=Journal of Literature, History, & Philosophy |date=2022 |issue=5 |pages=44–58 }}.

Category:Counties of China Category:Types of administrative division