by u.s. census bureau standards, the population of the atlanta region spreads across a metropolitan area of – a land area comparable to that of massachusetts. because georgia contains more counties than any other state except texas (explained in part by the now-defunct county-unit system of weighing votes in primary elections), area residents live under a heavily decentralized collection of governments. as of the 2000 census, fewer than one in ten residents of the metropolitan area lived inside atlanta city limits.