I thought a good way to get this county forum up and running would be to publish a full description of how each domestic league system works in each of the test playing countries. Obviously, my knowledge is largely restricted to the UK cricket scene, and so I'll provide a description of how that works and which teams compete.

The major first class domestic competition is the County Championship. This competition has games which take place over a period of 4 days and is split into two divisions. Movement between the two divisions is by promotion and relegation. Currently, 3 teams are relegated from division 1 and 3 promoted from division 2 per season. This year, the County Championship D1 was won by Warwickshire and D2 was won by Nottinghamshire.

In addition to the 4 day league, there is a one-day competition called the National League. Similarly to the County Championship, this is split into two divisions. The teams are against subject to 3 up 3 down promotion and relegation based on their one-day performances. Since 2002, Scotland have also been allowed to compete in the National League. This year's competition was won by Glamorgan:

On top of this competition, an annual cup competition is run. This is currently called the C&G Trophy. This is a one-day competition which allows 50 overs per innings. All the county teams compete in this competition from the start of May. However, the 1st round of the competition starts in the preceeding August when the county UCCEs and the minor counties play each other for the right to take on a first class county. In addition to these teams, Ireland, Holland and Denmark have all been known to enter a team for the C&G Trophy. Ireland performed particularly well in the current year when they knocked out the well fancied Surrey. The end of the trophy takes place at Lords' in August when a showpiece final is held. This year's final was contested between local rivals Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, with Gloucestershire winning for the 2nd year in a row.

In 2003, an additional competition was introduced to increase the exposure of cricket to the British public. This was the infamous Twenty 20 competition which involves short one-day games of 20 overs per side which can be played after work hours to allow those who cannot normally get to see cricket to attend. And attend in their droves they have, with some of the biggest county gate receipts for years. This years competition was won by the unfancied team from Leicestershire.

Below the level of the first class county game, there is a minor county championship which allows all the other less followed, and generally less populous counties to compete in a national competition. This is once more split into two divisions, but this time on a regional East/West basis with the winners of the two leagues playing off at the end of the season to decide the winners of the Minor Counties Championship. Often, young up and coming first class county players will be blooded in a minor county first XI to allow them to gain some competitive 1st team exposure. Since 2003, the amount of former first class players in the minor county game has been restricted to 1 per team to allow more young players to gain experience. Minor county matches are played over the course of 3 days.

This year's final between Devon and Bedfordshire took place on the 12th, 13th and 14th of September and was shared by the two counties as the game was restricted by rain.

Edit:

Further to the above, the ECB announced reforms in December aimed at reforming the one day game. The National League will feature in the first half of the season as described above, but Scotland will not compete.

Instead, the C&G Cup will be reformed into 2 divisions (North and South) with Scotland competing in the North Division and Ireland competing in the South Division. The minor counties will not be competing. The winners of the 2 conferences will play each other to decide the winner of the Cup