Northwest Hills Planning Region area

Population and density of Northwest Hills Planning Region

The Census Bureau estimates that 114,690 people lived in Northwest Hills Planning Region on July 1, 2025. That ranks #566 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #8 of 9 in Connecticut. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 112,463, the population has grown by 2,227 (+2%), compared with +2.2% for Connecticut as a whole.

With 786.6 square miles of land, that is 146 people per square mile (56 per km²), placing Northwest Hills Planning Region #790 nationally for density and #9 in Connecticut. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Connecticut median is 968. Put another way, there are about 4.4 acres of land per resident.

U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 population estimates. Estimates are revised each year and are not decennial census counts. Density divides the whole population by the whole county’s land area, so it describes an average, not how settlement is distributed within the county. Population sources and methods.

Cities and towns in Northwest Hills Planning Region

Northwest Hills Planning Region is divided into 21 cities and towns. In Connecticut, county subdivisions are local governments, and together they cover all of the county’s land and residents.

The most populous is Torrington town, with 35,796 residents (31.2% of the county). The largest by land is Sharon town, at 58.8 mi², or 7.5% of the county’s land. Among those with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Harwinton town grew fastest since then (+4.9%).

Population: U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2025 subcounty estimates, counting only the part of each subdivision inside Northwest Hills Planning Region. Land: 2026 Census Gazetteer. How communities are listed.

Metropolitan area

Northwest Hills Planning Region is a central county of the Torrington, CT Micropolitan Statistical Area. Northwest Hills Planning Region is the area’s only county equivalent, so the micro area has the same 786.6 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #271 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #21 by population. It belongs to the New Haven-Hartford-Waterbury, CT Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

37 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Northwest Hills Planning Region; 34 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

06013060180602106024060270603106039060570605806061060630606506068060690607906091060980675006752067530675406756067570675806759067630677606777067780678306785067870679006791067930679406796

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are the Census Bureau’s approximations of USPS ZIP Code service areas, from the 2020 Census relationship files. Lighter codes have less than half of their land in this county. Post-office-box and single-address ZIP Codes have no tabulation area. Connecticut areas are assigned through their towns, because planning regions replaced the state’s counties after 2020.

Counties bordering Northwest Hills Planning Region

Northwest Hills Planning Region shares a land border with 6 county equivalents, including 3 in New York and Massachusetts. It has more land than 3 of them. The largest neighbor is Capitol Planning Region (1,027.4 mi²) and the smallest is Naugatuck Valley Planning Region (412.8 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Northwest Hills Planning Region forms a block of 5,098.4 mi² of land, of which it holds 15.4%.

How big is Northwest Hills Planning Region compared with U.S. states?

Northwest Hills Planning Region has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.3 times as much. Connecticut’s county land could hold about 6.2 areas the size of Northwest Hills Planning Region.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 28 miles (45.1 km) on each side. Real county shapes are rarely square, so this is a scale reference rather than a width or driving distance.

State figures are the sums of each state’s county-equivalent land measurements in the same Census release, so states and counties are compared on the same basis. Published state totals can differ slightly because of rounding. Compare all states · Counties bigger than entire states.

What stands out about Northwest Hills Planning Region?

Northwest Hills Planning Region has more land than 2,125 of the other 3,221 county equivalents in the dataset.

A median is the middle county-equivalent measurement, not the average of the largest and smallest. All three bars use the same linear scale. Very small areas may appear as a thin sliver; the labels retain their values.

Does including water change its rank?

Using land plus water places Northwest Hills Planning Region at #1,157 nationally by total area, 60 places farther from the top than its land rank. Other county equivalents gain more area when their water measurements are included.

Its water share is 2.7%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1.5 percentage points higher. This describes the statistical geography’s land/water mix, not flood exposure or developable land.

Closest positions in the national land ranking

These entries sit immediately beside Northwest Hills Planning Region in the national ranking. They can be in different states and are not necessarily geographic neighbors.

Calculated from the same Census release as the area table. Total-area order uses original ALAND + AWATER; water shares and chart labels use published square miles. Calculation details.