United States. Of these, 38 are in Virginia. They are called 'independent' because they are not in the territory of any county or counties. Independent cities in Virginia may, however, serve as county seats for neighboring counties. The three independent cities outside Virginia are Baltimore, Maryland; St. Louis, Missouri; and Carson City, Nevada. New York City displays many features associated with independent cities but is, in fact, a sui generis municipality that is coextensive with five counties. Counties invariably are administrative divisions of state government. In the case of New York City, however, they are also administrative divisions of city government. As city administrative divisions, the five counties are called boroughs, retaining the label 'county' as state administrative divisions. For three out of the five boroughs, the borough and county have different names: the borough of Manhattan is the County of New York; Brooklyn is Kings County; and Staten Island is Richmond County. For the remaining two boroughs, Queens and the Bronx, the county and borough share the same name. Another similar entity is a consolidated city-county. An independent city is not even nominally part of any county, whereas for a consolidated city and county, the county at least nominally exists. In some cases, such as Indianapolis, Indiana, the largest city in a county is consolidated with the county government while smaller communities continue to operate within the same county but separately from Indianapolis. In other cases, such as The City and County of Honolulu, Hawaii, and The City and County of San Francisco, California, there is a complete consolidation of municipality and county. San Francisco, for example, has a chief executive called "Mayor", a term normally associated with city government, but the legislative body is called "Board of Supervisors", which is otherwise associated with county government in California. Washington, D.C., meanwhile, effectively functions in varying ways as an independent city, consolidated city-county, and state all in one, although it has special Constitutional status as the "district constituting the seat of government of the United States," and is not part of a county or a state. In 1871, the cities of Washington and Georgetown and the County of Washington were consolidated into a single local government. South America Argentina The Buenos Aires city was previously the Federal District of Argentina. In 1996, under the 1994 reform of the Argentine Constitution, the city gained autonomous city status, and changed its formal