Strafford County area

Population and density of Strafford County

The Census Bureau estimates that 135,043 people lived in Strafford County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #496 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #4 of 10 in New Hampshire. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 130,898, the population has grown by 4,145 (+3.2%), compared with +2.7% for New Hampshire as a whole.

With 367.5 square miles of land, that is 367 people per square mile (142 per km²), placing Strafford County #439 nationally for density and #3 in New Hampshire. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the New Hampshire median is 136. Put another way, there are about 1.7 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 Strafford County

Strafford County is divided into 13 cities and towns. In New Hampshire, county subdivisions are local governments, and together they cover all of the county’s land and residents.

The most populous is Dover city, with 34,623 residents (25.6% of the county). The largest by land is Strafford town, at 49 mi², or 13.3% of the county’s land. Among those with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, New Durham town grew fastest since then (+7.2%).

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

Metropolitan area

Strafford County is an outlying county of the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH Metropolitan Statistical Area, in the Rockingham County-Strafford County, NH metropolitan division. Its 7 county equivalents have 5,034,221 residents on 3,486.3 square miles of land; Strafford County accounts for 10.5% of the land and 2.7% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #84 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #11 by population. It belongs to the Boston-Worcester-Providence, MA-RI-NH Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

17 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Strafford County; 16 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

0304203820038230382403825038350383903851038520385503861038670386803869038780388403887

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.

Counties bordering Strafford County

Strafford County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents, including 1 in Maine. Each of them has more land than Strafford County. The largest neighbor is York County (991.2 mi²) and the smallest is Belknap County (401.9 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Strafford County forms a block of 4,320.9 mi² of land, of which it holds 8.5%.

How big is Strafford County compared with U.S. states?

Strafford County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.8 times as much. New Hampshire’s county land could hold about 24 areas the size of Strafford County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 19.2 miles (30.9 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 Strafford County?

Strafford County has more land than 584 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 Strafford County at #2,654 nationally by total area, 16 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 3.9%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 2.8 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 Strafford County 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.