divided the nation into twelve regions, each with a Roman numeral to distinguish themselves from the council number (Region I - XII). Councils in each Region were identified by headquarters city and state. A resolution at the National Meeting in 1945 obligated the BSA to assign council numbers only to those councils within the continental US; those councils located outside the United States were not assigned a council number. In 1949 there were 543 councils. In 1959, the addition of Alaska and Hawaii as the 49th and 50th states, respectively, disrupted the numbering system and made it much less prominent. Councils generally resumed use of geographical names (e.g., the Flint River Council or the Four Lakes Council) and provided their council number only when giving annual data to the central organization. Use of numbers to identify councils fell into further disuse when some of the smaller local councils found that it was in their best interest to combine with neighboring councils; for example, the Cumberland Council in Somerset, Kentucky combined with the Bluegrass Council in Lexington, Kentucky, and three Councils in northwest Texas combined to become the Northwest Texas Council. As a result of such mergers, by 1960 the BSA had 490 local Councils, a significant reduction from 532 in 1932. Circa 1960, the BSA renumbered all local Councils in alphabetical order by state and headquarters city. That numbering system remains in use today. In this sequence, Council "Number 1" (not the 'oldest BSA Council') was originally called the Choccolocco Council that was headquartered in Anniston, Alabama. That Council, combined with two others, now forms the Greater Alabama Council, headquartered from Huntsville, Alabama. There were several breaks in the numbering sequence, resulting in the highest numeric designation being council 639, the Jim Bridger Council in Wyoming. Councils outside the US were given numbers that began with 800, which was assigned to the Direct Service Council. Council number 801 was assigned to the Panama Canal Zone Council; 802 was assigned to the EUCOM (later Transatlantic Council); 803 was assigned to the Far East Council; 804 was assigned to the Philippines Area Council; and 805 was initially assigned to Saudi Arabia and parts of the Middle East. Later, this region was restored to the supervision of the Direct Service Council and the number retired. The BSA also encouraged districts within a council to be in numerical order by the closeness to the