Hunterdon County area

Population and density of Hunterdon County

The Census Bureau estimates that 131,781 people lived in Hunterdon County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #505 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #18 of 21 in New Jersey. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 128,954, the population has grown by 2,827 (+2.2%), compared with +2.8% for New Jersey as a whole.

With 427.8 square miles of land, that is 308 people per square mile (119 per km²), placing Hunterdon County #499 nationally for density and #19 in New Jersey. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the New Jersey median is 1,137. Put another way, there are about 2.1 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 Hunterdon County

Hunterdon County is divided into 26 municipalities and townships. In New Jersey, county subdivisions are local governments, and together they cover all of the county’s land and residents.

The most populous is Raritan township, with 25,281 residents (19.2% of the county). The largest by land is Readington township, at 47.6 mi², or 11.1% of the county’s land. The county seat, Flemington borough, has 4,856 residents. Among those with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Frenchtown borough grew fastest since then (+9.2%).

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

Metropolitan area

Hunterdon County is an outlying county of the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ Metropolitan Statistical Area, in the Newark, NJ metropolitan division. Its 22 county equivalents have 20,112,448 residents on 6,139.7 square miles of land; Hunterdon County accounts for 7% of the land and 0.7% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #34 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #1 by population. It belongs to the New York-Newark, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

26 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Hunterdon County; 20 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

0783007865078820797908525085300855108559085600880108802088040880908822088250882608827088290883308848088530885808867088760888708889

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 Hunterdon County

Hunterdon County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents, including 1 in Pennsylvania. It has more land than 3 of them. The largest neighbor is Bucks County (604.4 mi²) and the smallest is Mercer County (224.5 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Hunterdon County forms a block of 2,376.2 mi² of land, of which it holds 18%.

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

Hunterdon County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.4 times as much. New Jersey’s county land could hold about 17 areas the size of Hunterdon County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 20.7 miles (33.3 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 Hunterdon County?

Hunterdon County has more land than 848 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 Hunterdon County at #2,397 nationally by total area, 23 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 2.2%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1 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 Hunterdon 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.