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There are 94 active United Statesdistrict andterritorial courts.^[1] Each of the 50states has between one and four district courts, and theDistrict of Columbia andPuerto Rico each has a district court.

Theinsular areas ofGuam, theNorthern Mariana Islands, and theUnited States Virgin Islands each has one territorial court; these courts are called "district courts" and exercise the same jurisdiction as district courts,^[2][3] but differ from district courts in that territorial courts areArticle IV courts, with judges who serve ten-year terms rather than thelifetime tenure of judges ofArticle III courts, such as the district court judges.^[3]American Samoa does not have a district court or a federal territorial court, and so federal matters there are sent to either theDistrict of Columbia orHawaii.^[4]

The district courts were established byCongress underArticle III of theUnited States Constitution. The courts hearcivil andcriminal cases, and each is paired with abankruptcy court.^[2] Appeals from the district courts are made to one of the 13courts of appeals, organized geographically. The number of district courts in a court of appeals' circuit varies between one and thirteen, depending on the number of states in the region and the number of districts in each state.The formal naming convention for the district courts is "United States District Court for" followed by the district name. Each district court has one or more meeting places at which it holds hearings and conducts business. Many federalcourthouses are named after notable judges, such as theThurgood Marshall United States Courthouse inNew York City or theHugo L. Black United States Courthouse inBirmingham. The largest courthouse is theThomas F. Eagleton United States Courthouse, which serves theEastern District of Missouri.^[5]

The largest courts by number of judges are theCentral District of California and theSouthern District of New York, each with 28 judgeships. The smallest are theDistrict for the Northern Mariana Islands and theDistrict of Guam, with one judgeship each.

Key

Note: Defunct courts do not include courts consisting of an entire state that were later subdivided.

• List of United States federal courthouses
• List of former United States district courts

General

• Association of Legal Writing Directors (December 2002).ALWD Citation Manual: A Professional System of Citation(PDF). New York, New York: Aspen Publishers. pp. 431–438.ISBN 978-0-7355-3640-1. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 2008-10-06. Retrieved2009-06-19.
• Federal Judicial History Office (2009)."The U.S. District Courts and the Federal Judiciary".History of the Federal Judiciary.Federal Judicial Center. Retrieved2009-05-24.
• "U.S. Courts | Frequently Asked Questions".Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Archived fromthe original on 2009-02-26. Retrieved2009-06-02.

Specific

• United States District Courts official website

• United States district courts
• United States law-related lists

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles with hCards