Orange County, Vermont

Orange County is a county in Vermont, United States, near the state’s geographic centre. It had a population of 29,277 at the 2020 census and covers 692 square miles (1,790 km2), of which 687 square miles (1,780 km2) are land and 5.2 square miles (13 km2) are water, centred near 43°59′N 72°22′W.

Chelsea is the county seat, and its postal code is 05038. The county has 17 towns — Vermont has no incorporated cities or civil townships, so the town is the only unit of local government — plus dozens of unincorporated villages and hamlets inside them. Orange County sits in the Eastern time zone.

Towns & Villages in Orange County

Orange County has 17 towns, each self-governing under Vermont’s town-meeting system, and roughly 70 named villages and hamlets clustered inside them — crossroads, mill sites and river landings that never incorporated separately. The table below lists the town seat first, then the smaller places, with the parent town noted for anything that is not itself a town.

Two names in the old listing did not check out against the current town roster: “Old City” and “Goshen” have no confirmed location inside Orange County (Goshen is a town in Addison and Rutland counties), so both are omitted here; a handful of other small crossroads — Cookville, Copper Flat, Dowdey Corner, Foxville, Jackson Corner, Kennedy Corners, Mill Village, Peach Four Corners and Rices Mills — are genuine Vermont place names but could not be pinned to a specific Orange County town from available sources, so they are also left out rather than guessed at.

ZIP Codes

• 05038 — Chelsea (county seat)
• 05060 — Randolph
• 05061 — Randolph Center
• 05041 — East Randolph
• 05033 — Bradford
• 05679 — Williamstown
• 05045 — Fairlee
• 05058 — Post Mills (also serves Fairlee)
• 05075 — Thetford Center
• 05074 — Thetford (PO Box only)
• 05043 — East Thetford
• 05054 — North Thetford (PO Box only)
• 05036 — Brookfield
• 05077 — Tunbridge
• 05039 — Corinth
• 05040 — East Corinth
• 05051 — Newbury
• 05085 — West Newbury (PO Box only)
• 05081 — Wells River (also serves Newbury)
• 05079 — Vershire
• 05675 — Washington
• 05072 — Strafford
• 05070 — South Strafford (also serves Strafford)
• 05086 — West Topsham
• 05076 — Topsham
• 05083 — West Fairlee

Smaller hamlets such as Braintree Hill, South Randolph and Vershire Center share a ZIP with their parent town rather than carrying their own.

Geography

Orange County sits near the geographic centre of Vermont, on the west side of the Connecticut River valley, and is drained by the White River and the First and Second Branch of the White River in its south, and by the Waits and Ompompanoosuc rivers in the north. Terrain is hilly and forested, part of the Vermont Piedmont between the Green Mountains and the Connecticut River, with almost no flat ground outside the river bottoms. The county borders Caledonia County to the northeast, Grafton County, New Hampshire, across the Connecticut River to the east, Windsor County to the south and southwest, Addison County to the west, and Washington County to the northwest.

Demographics

Orange County had 29,277 residents at the 2020 census, spread across 17 small towns with no place larger than a few thousand people — Randolph, the county’s largest town, had 4,774 residents. Density works out to about 43 people per square mile, among the lower figures in Vermont. Median household income runs below the Vermont median of $81,211 in most of the county’s hill towns, though towns along the Connecticut River corridor (Thetford, Fairlee, Newbury) trend closer to the state figure thanks to commuting into the Upper Valley job market around Hanover and Lebanon, New Hampshire.

Economy & Local Life

Randolph is the county’s commercial and institutional hub, home to Vermont Technical College and Gifford Medical Center, the county’s main hospital. Dairy and hay farming remain active in the hill towns, alongside sugaring — Orange County has a long-running maple industry, and Vershire, Corinth and Washington all have working sugarhouses. The Connecticut River towns of Fairlee, Newbury and Thetford draw summer traffic to Lake Morey and the river itself, and Thetford is home to Vermont Technical College’s partner Rivendell Academy region. The Tunbridge World’s Fair, held each September in Tunbridge, is the county’s best-known annual event and one of the oldest agricultural fairs in New England.

History

Orange County was chartered on February 22, 1781, and organized later that year, one of Vermont’s original counties from the period just before Vermont joined the Union in 1791. It takes its name from William of Orange, following the pattern of several other early Vermont counties named for European royal houses. The Tunbridge World’s Fair began in 1867 and has run most years since. Politically the county leaned Republican from the mid-1800s through the 1960 election, then shifted toward the Democratic Party from 1964 onward, a pattern shared with much of rural Vermont.

Getting There

Interstate 91 runs along the county’s eastern edge through Fairlee and Thetford, and Interstate 89 clips the southwestern corner near Randolph and Brookfield; US Route 5 parallels I-91 along the Connecticut River, and US Route 302 crosses the county through Wells River, Groton and Barre. Vermont Routes 12, 14, 25, 66, 110 and 113 connect the smaller towns.

• Montpelier, Vermont — 20 miles northwest
• Hanover, New Hampshire (Dartmouth College) — 15 miles east of Thetford
• White River Junction, Vermont — 12 miles southeast
• Barre, Vermont — 15 miles northwest

The nearest commercial airport is Lebanon Municipal Airport in Lebanon, New Hampshire, roughly 20 miles from Thetford; Burlington International Airport, about 65 miles northwest, has a wider schedule of flights.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Orange County, Vermont?
It sits near the geographic centre of the state, on the west side of the Connecticut River valley, bordering New Hampshire to the east.

What is the population of Orange County?
29,277 people, at the 2020 census.

How big is Orange County?
692 square miles (1,790 km2) total, of which 687 square miles is land.

What is the county seat of Orange County?
Chelsea, referred to locally as the shire town.

How many towns are in Orange County?
17 towns, plus roughly 70 unincorporated villages and hamlets inside them. Vermont has no incorporated cities in the county and no civil townships separate from the towns themselves.

What ZIP codes are in Orange County?
26 ZIP codes, including 05038 (Chelsea), 05060 (Randolph) and 05081 (Wells River); a full list is above.

What is Orange County, Vermont known for?
The Tunbridge World’s Fair, Vermont Technical College in Randolph, and maple sugaring in its hill towns.

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