County vs. Parish

Another day with too much time on my hand...

Since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit Louisiana, I've caught some news reports. Reporters kept on talking about Cameron Parish and Jefferson Parish, etc. As I guessed, they are just a fancy pants way of referring to counties. This is what I found in Wikipedia.

There are still remnants of its former status as a possession of France, including: the use of a civil law legal system, based on the Louisiana Civil Code, which is similar to (and often confused with) the Napoleonic Code (like France, and unlike the rest of the United States, which uses a common law legal system derived from England), the term "parishes" being used to describe the state's sub-divisions as opposed to "counties", etc.

I verify my guess and learn some more trivia. I love wikipedia.