Tolland County, Connecticut

Tolland County is a county in Connecticut, United States, in the north-central part of the
state, about 20 miles northeast of Hartford. It had a population of 149,788 at the 2020 census
and covers 410 square miles (1,100 km2) of land centred near 41°51′N 72°20′W.

Connecticut abolished county government in 1960, so Tolland County has no seat, no courts and
no elected officials of its own today; its 13 towns run their own affairs. Rockville, a village
in Vernon, was the last county seat, from 1889 until 1960; its postal code is 06066. The county
holds 13 towns and several villages and unincorporated places within them, and it runs on Eastern
Time.

Towns & Villages in Tolland County

Tolland County has 13 towns — the primary unit of local government in Connecticut —
plus a number of named villages and census-designated places inside them. CDP stands for census
designated place; Unincorp. covers smaller villages and crossroads with no formal boundary of
their own. The Town column shows which of the 13 towns each village sits inside; for a town
itself the column reads —.

A handful of villages sit on town lines rather than inside one town. Amston is a shared postal
name for the neighboring corner of Andover and Hebron, and its mail runs through Hebron’s 06231
ZIP. Coventry Lake and Crystal Lake are both lake-shore communities named for the body of water
they sit beside, in Coventry and Ellington respectively, not separate villages with their own
boundaries.

ZIP Codes

• 06066 — Vernon and Rockville
• 06084 — Tolland
• 06238 — Coventry
• 06029 — Ellington
• 06076 — Stafford and Stafford Springs
• 06071 — Somers
• 06231 — Hebron (Gilead) and Amston
• 06248 — Hebron
• 06279 — Willington
• 06237 — Columbia
• 06043 — Bolton
• 06232 — Andover
• 06268/06269/06235/06250/06251 — Mansfield, including the Storrs university campus

Union has no ZIP code of its own; mail there is split between the neighboring 06076 (Stafford
Springs) and 06242 (Eastford, in Windham County) codes, since the town has never had its own post
office serving the whole area. The smaller unincorporated villages inside each town — South
Coventry, Somersville, West Stafford and the rest — use their parent town’s ZIP.

Geography

Tolland County sits in Connecticut’s northeastern uplands, a belt of forested hills and
glacial lakes between the Connecticut River valley and the Quinebaug watershed. It is
Connecticut’s second-smallest county by land area, and roughly 1.7 percent of its 417 square
miles is water. The Willimantic River runs along Willington’s western edge, the Hockanum River
powered Rockville’s 19th-century mills, and Shenipsit State Forest spreads across Ellington,
Somers, Stafford and Tolland. Union, in the county’s far northeast corner, is nearly one-third
state park and forest land, including Bigelow Hollow State Park and Nipmuck State Forest.

Hartford County lies to the west, Windham County to the east, and New London County to the
south. Hampden County, Massachusetts, borders the county to the northwest and Worcester County,
Massachusetts, to the northeast. Hartford
County, Windham County and New London County all have posts on
this site; the two Massachusetts counties do not.

Demographics

Tolland County had a population of 149,788 at the 2020 census, a 1.9 percent decline from 2010.
Vernon and Mansfield are the two largest towns, together holding more than a third of the
county’s residents; Mansfield’s count includes the main University of Connecticut campus at
Storrs, a large student population that swells the town’s official figure. Median household
income across the county was $88,525 (2021 ACS), close to Connecticut’s statewide figure of
$91,665 (2023 ACS). Population density works out to about 365 people per square mile of land,
concentrated heavily in Vernon and the Storrs-Mansfield area, with Union and Andover far more
sparsely settled.

Economy & Local Life

Educational services employ the most workers countywide, about 12,884 people, followed by
health care and social assistance at 10,428 and manufacturing at 8,684. The University of
Connecticut’s Storrs campus, in Mansfield, is the single largest employer in the county at
roughly 5,300 staff, and its presence has earned Storrs the nickname “College Basketball
Capital of the World” for the men’s and women’s programs it has produced. Rockville General
Hospital and the Town of Vernon are Vernon’s largest employers. Stafford Motor Speedway, a
short oval NASCAR-sanctioned track, draws crowds of racing fans every spring and summer weekend.
Somers hosts the Four Town Fair each September, one of the oldest agricultural fairs in the
country, and Hebron holds its own Harvest Fair the same month.

History

The Connecticut General Assembly formed Tolland County on 13 October 1785, from eastern towns
of Hartford County and western towns of Windham County. It took its name from the town of
Tolland, itself named for Tolland, Somerset, in England. Tolland served as the shire town from
1785 to 1889, when the seat moved to the growing mill village of Rockville; the old courthouse
and jail still stand on Tolland’s town green. Connecticut abolished all county government by
referendum in 1960, transferring courts and law enforcement to state agencies, and Tolland County
has functioned only as a geographic and statistical division since.

Coventry is the birthplace of Nathan Hale, the Continental Army officer executed by the
British in 1776 and later named Connecticut’s official state hero; his family homestead is now a
seasonal museum. During the Revolutionary War, French troops under the Comte de Rochambeau
marched through the county on their way to Yorktown, camping on farmland in Bolton and quartering
officers at White’s Tavern in Andover. The University of Connecticut traces to 1881, when the
Storrs Agricultural School opened in Mansfield on land donated by brothers Charles and Augustus
Storrs.

Getting There

Interstate 84 crosses the county through Vernon, Tolland and Willington, dips briefly into
Windham County, then re-enters Tolland County at Union before crossing into Massachusetts toward
Sturbridge. Connecticut Route 195 in Tolland and Route 32 in Willington both connect I-84 to the
University of Connecticut’s Storrs campus.

• Hartford — about 20 miles west
• Willimantic — about 10 miles southeast
• Springfield, Massachusetts — about 25 miles northwest
• Worcester, Massachusetts — about 30 miles northeast

Bradley International Airport, in Windsor Locks, is the nearest major commercial airport, about
20 miles northwest of Vernon. There is no passenger rail station inside Tolland County; the
nearest Amtrak and Hartford Line service runs from Hartford’s Union Station, roughly 20 miles to
the west.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Tolland County located?
It sits in Connecticut’s northeastern uplands, about 20 miles northeast of Hartford, bordered by
Hartford, Windham and New London counties and, to the north, Hampden and Worcester counties in
Massachusetts.

What is the population of Tolland County?
149,788 at the 2020 census, down 1.9 percent from 2010.

How big is Tolland County?
417 square miles total, of which 410 square miles are land and the rest water.

Does Tolland County have a county seat?
No. Connecticut abolished county government in 1960. Rockville, now a village in Vernon, was the
last seat, serving from 1889 until then; Tolland held the role before that, from 1785.

How many towns are in Tolland County?
Thirteen: Andover, Bolton, Columbia, Coventry, Ellington, Hebron, Mansfield, Somers, Stafford,
Tolland, Union, Vernon and Willington, plus villages and census-designated places inside them
such as Rockville, Storrs and Stafford Springs.

What ZIP codes does Tolland County use?
Among others, 06066 for Vernon and Rockville, 06084 for Tolland, 06238 for Coventry, 06029 for
Ellington and 06076 for Stafford and Stafford Springs.

What is Tolland County known for?
The University of Connecticut’s main campus at Storrs, Nathan Hale’s birthplace in Coventry,
and Stafford Motor Speedway.

More counties in this state: Towns and villages in Connecticut.