Executive of Montgomery County

Montgomery County, Maryland
County
County of Montgomery
Downtown Rockville in 2001, the Black Rock Mill in 2006, the National Naval Medical Center in 2003, Shady Grove in 2004, and the Gaithersburg city hall in 2007.
Flag Seal Coat of arms Emblem
Nickname(s): "MoCo"
Motto(s): "Gardez Bien" (English: Watch Well)
Location in the U.S. state of Maryland
Country	United States of America
State	Maryland
Founded	September 6, 1776
Named for	Richard Montgomery
Government
• Executive	Isiah Leggett (D)
Area
• Total	507 sq mi (1,310 km2)
• Land	491 sq mi (1,270 km2)
• Water	16 sq mi (40 km2)  3.1%
Population (2016)
• Total	1,043,863
• Density	2,126/sq mi (821/km2)
Demonym(s)	Montgomery Countyan, MoCoite
Time zone	Eastern (EST) (UTC-5)
• Summer (DST)	EDT (UTC-4)
ZIP	20874, 20875, 20876
Area code(s)	240, 301
Seat (and largest city)	Rockville
Congressional districts	3rd, 6th, 8th
Website	www.montgomerycountymd.gov

Montgomery County, officially the County of Montgomery, is a county in the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2010 census, the population was 971,777, with a 2014 estimate putting the population at 1,030,447. It is the most populous county in Maryland. The county seat and largest municipality is Rockville, although the census-designated place of Germantown is the most populous place.

Montgomery County is included in the Washington–Arlington–Alexandria, DC–VA–MD–WV Metropolitan Statistical Area. Most of the county's residents live in unincorporated locales, of which the most built up are Silver Spring, and Bethesda, though the incorporated cities of Rockville and Gaithersburg are also large population centers as are many smaller but significant places.

As one of the most affluent counties in the United States, it also has the highest percentage (29.2%) of residents over 25 years of age who hold post-graduate degrees. In 2011, it was ranked by Forbes as the 10th richest in the United States, with a median household income of $92,213.

Montgomery County, like other inner Washington, D.C. suburban counties, contains many major U.S. government offices, scientific research and learning centers, and business campuses, which provide a significant amount of revenue for the county.

The Maryland state legislature named Montgomery County after Richard Montgomery; the county was created from lands that had at one point or another been part of Frederick County. On September 6, 1776, Thomas Sprigg Wootton from Rockville, Maryland, introduced legislation, while serving at the Maryland Constitutional Convention, to create lower Frederick County as Montgomery County. The name, Montgomery County, along with the founding of Washington County, Maryland, after George Washington, was the first time in American history that counties and provinces in the thirteen colonies were not named after British referents. The name use of Montgomery and Washington County were seen as further defiance to Great Britain during the American Revolutionary War. The county's nickname of "MoCo" is derived from "Montgomery County", after the pattern of SoHo, Manhattan.