Charlotte County, New Brunswick

Charlotte County Comté de Charlotte
County
County courthouse and jail
Location within New Brunswick
Coordinates: 45°10′N 66°50′W / 45.167°N 66.833°W / 45.167; -66.833
Country	Canada
Province	New Brunswick
Established	1785
Named for	Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
Area [1]
• Land	3,426.97 km2 (1,323.16 sq mi)
Population  (2016)[1]
• Total	25,428
• Density	7.4/km2 (19/sq mi)
• Pop 2011-2016	4.2%
• Dwellings	13,513
Time zone	UTC−04:00 (AST)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−03:00 (ADT)
Area code	506

Charlotte County (2016 population 25,428^[1]) is the most southwestern county of New Brunswick, Canada.

It was formed in 1784 when New Brunswick was partitioned from Nova Scotia^[2] and named for Queen Charlotte.^[3] Once a layer of local government, the county seat 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 US 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 JD Irving, is in Utopia, and Flakeboard Co. Ltd. operates outside of St. Stephen. Ganong Bros., Canada's oldest chocolate company, maintains its factory in St. Stephen.

Governance is in the form of New Brunswick municipalities in the case of the towns of St. 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.