php count HELP

Please help... I need to figure out how to count the number of cities ($city) and then display them EQUALLY in a table with 3 columns. So for example, if there is 10 $city in $county, display it in a table with 4 cities in column1, 3 cities in column2, 3 cities in column3.

** note: the $city count will vary depending on the $county

<?php

include 'config.php';
include 'opendb.php';

$query  = "SELECT city FROM table WHERE abbr='$abbr' AND county='$county' GROUP BY city";

$result = mysql_query($query);

while(list($city)= mysql_fetch_row($result))
{
    echo "<a href=\"/city/$state-$city.html\">$city</a><br />";
}

include 'closedb.php';
?>

PHP:

 

I figured it out... so if anyone else wants to know here is what I did:

<?php
include 'config.php';
include 'opendb.php';
$query  = "SELECT city FROM table WHERE abbr='$abbr' AND countyurl='$countyurl' GROUP BY city";
$result = mysql_query($query);

echo "<table width=\"100%\"  border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n";
$count = 0;
$columns = 3; //column number declaration
if(mysql_num_rows($result)) {
while($myrow = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
// display list if there are records to display
if($count == 0) echo "<tr>\n";
printf("<td><a href=\"/city/$state-%s%s.html\">%s %s</a></td>\n", $php_SELF, $myrow["city"], $myrow["city"], $myrow[""]);
if($count == $columns - 1) echo "</tr>\n";//here without the!
$count = ++$count % $columns;
}
if($count!= 0) echo "</tr>\n";
echo "</table>\n";
} else {
// no records to display
echo "Sorry, no records were found!";
}
include 'closedb.php';
?> 

PHP:

 

i'm usually doing this way

$res = mysql_query('[your query]');
$i=0;
while ($line = mysql_fetch_array($res)){
 if ($i%3==0) print("<tr>");
 print("<td>yourdata</td>");
 if ($i%3==2) print("</tr>");

 $i++;
}

PHP:

of course its just a sketch but it shows you the basic idea