Loving County, Texas in the context of "Kalaupapa Peninsula"

Kalawao County (Hawaiian: Kalana o Kalawao) is a county in the U.S. state of Hawaii. It is the smallest county in the 50 states by land area and the second-smallest county by population, after Loving County, Texas. The county encompasses the peninsula on the north coast of the island of Molokaʻi. The peninsula was developed and used from 1866 to 1969 as a leper colony, chosen because it is isolated from the rest of Molokaʻi by cliffs over a quarter-mile high; the only land access is a mule trail, now closed to visitors.

Due to the small population (82 as of the 2020 United States census), Kalawao County does not have the same functions as other Hawaii counties. Instead, it operates as a judicial district of Maui County, which includes the rest of the island of Molokaʻi. The county has no elected government.

The U.S. state of Texas is divided into 254 counties, more than any other U.S. state. While only about 20% of Texas counties are generally located within the Houston—Dallas—San Antonio—Austin areas, they serve a majority of the state's population with approximately 22,000,000 inhabitants.

Texas was originally divided into municipalities (municipios in Spanish), a unit of local government under Spanish and Mexican rule. When the Republic of Texas gained its independence in 1836, the 23 municipalities became the original Texas counties. Many of these were later divided into new counties. The last county to be initially created was Kenedy County in 1921, but Loving County is the newest organized county; it was first organized in 1893 in an apparent scheme to defraud, abolished in 1897, then reorganized in 1931. Most of these recent counties, especially near the northwest, were created from Bexar County during the 1870s.