South Orange is a suburban municipality in the New York Metropolitan Area located in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the village's population was 16,964. Seton Hall University is located in South Orange. "The time and circumstances under which the name South Orange originated will probably never be known," wrote historian William H Shaw in 1884, "and we are obliged to fall back on a tradition, that Mr Nathan Squier first used the name in an advertisement offering wood for sale" in 1795. Of the 566 municipalities in New Jersey, South Orange Village is one of only four with a village type of government; the others are Loch Arbour, Ridgefield Park and Ridgewood. South Orange Village dates back to May 4, 1869, when it was formed within South Orange Township. On March 4, 1904, the Village of South Orange was created by an act of the New Jersey Legislature and separated from South Orange Township. In 1981, the name was changed to "South Orange Village Township" to take advantage of federal revenue sharing policies. The change was intended to allow South Orange to qualify for a pool of federal aid allocated to municipalities that allowed townships to receive as much as double the revenue-sharing aid per capita received by the four other types of New Jersey municipalities — borough, city, town or village.