Is there a more elegant way to collapse a variable with 88 levels to one with 5 levels?

I have a categorical variable with 88 levels (counties) and I want to aggregate those into five larger geographical regions. Is there a more elegant way to do this than a huge amount of ifelse statements (like below)?

survey.responses$admin<-ifelse(survey.responses$CNTY=="Lake","Northeast",
                         ifelse(survey.responses$CNTY=="Traverse","Northwest", 
                         ifelse(survey.responses$CNTY=="Ramsey","Central",
                         ifelse(survey.responses$CNTY=="Cottonwood","South","out of state")

except imagine that CNTY has 88 levels! Any thoughts?