Strafford County, New Hampshire

Strafford County is a county in New Hampshire, United States, in the seacoast region near the Maine line. It had a population of 130,889 at the 2020 census and covers 383 square miles (991 km2) centred near 43°16′N 70°59′W, of which about 369 square miles (955 km2) is land and 15 square miles (39 km2) is water — the smallest county in New Hampshire by land area.

Dover is the county seat and its postal code is 03820. The county holds 3 cities, 10 towns, and a scatter of unincorporated villages and crossroads hamlets. It runs on Eastern Time and carries FIPS code 33-017.

Towns & Villages in Strafford County

Strafford County has 13 chartered municipalities — three cities and ten New England towns — plus a long list of older unincorporated villages and rural crossroads that never grew into their own local government. In the table below, City and Town are self-governing municipalities; CDP (census-designated place) is a Census Bureau statistical village with no government of its own; Unincorp. marks a historic hamlet, mill site, or crossroads that is part of a surrounding town.

Gonic, East Rochester, and Milton Mills are the county’s three census-designated places, each a mill village that stayed a recognisable neighbourhood after its parent town absorbed it administratively. The other names on the list are older crossroads and mill-hamlet names still used locally and on road signs, but with no separate government or ZIP code beyond their parent town’s.

ZIP Codes

• 03820 — Dover (also serves Madbury)
• 03867 — Rochester
• 03878 — Somersworth
• 03824 — Durham
• 03835 — Farmington
• 03825 — Barrington
• 03861 — Lee
• 03887 — Middleton
• 03851 — Milton
• 03852 — Milton Mills
• 03855 — New Durham
• 03869 — Rollinsford
• 03884 — Strafford
• 03839 — Gonic
• 03868 — East Rochester

The unincorporated crossroads hamlets use their parent town’s ZIP code rather than one of their own.

Geography

Strafford County sits in New Hampshire’s seacoast lowlands, where the granite hill country of the interior flattens toward tidal rivers running to the Atlantic. The Cocheco and Salmon Falls rivers cut through the county’s mill cities, and Bow Lake in Strafford and the Isinglass and Cocheco watersheds supply most of its fresh water. The Great Bay estuary reaches the county’s southeastern edge around Durham and Newington-facing shoreline. Woodland covers most of the rural towns in the north and west, while the Dover–Rochester–Somersworth corridor along the old rail and mill line carries most of the population.

Strafford County borders Carroll County to the north, Rockingham County to the south, Merrimack County to the west, and Belknap County to the northwest, and it faces York County, Maine across the Salmon Falls River to the east.

Demographics

Strafford County had 130,889 residents at the 2020 census, up 6.3% from 2010 — one of the fastest-growing counties in New Hampshire that decade. Dover (32,741) and Rochester (32,492) are the largest communities and are nearly the same size, with Durham (15,490) inflated by the University of New Hampshire’s student population and Somersworth (11,855) rounding out the county’s four largest places. Median household income in Strafford County runs somewhat below the New Hampshire median of $96,838, reflecting its mix of mill-city and university-town economies rather than the wealthier towns closer to Boston. Population density is roughly 355 people per square mile of land, concentrated heavily along the Cocheco River corridor.

Economy & Local Life

The University of New Hampshire in Durham is the county’s largest single employer and shapes the whole southern end of the county, from student housing to the research and biotech firms that have grown up around it. Dover and Rochester carry the county’s health-care and retail base — Wentworth-Douglass Hospital in Dover and Frisbie Memorial Hospital in Rochester are the two acute-care hospitals serving the county. Dover, Somersworth, and Rochester all grew up as 19th-century mill cities on the Cocheco and Salmon Falls rivers, and their old brick mill buildings now hold apartments, offices, and small manufacturers rather than the shoe and textile plants that first filled them. Farmington and the smaller towns stay more agricultural and forested, with dairy farms, orchards, and Christmas-tree lots still working land that has been in family hands for generations.

History

Strafford County was established in 1771, one of the five original counties New Hampshire’s colonial legislature created that year, and was named for William Wentworth, 2nd Earl of Strafford — a mistaken connection made at the time between the earl’s title and colonial governor John Wentworth, who was not actually descended from that line. Dover, settled in 1623, is among the oldest permanent English settlements in New Hampshire and predates the county itself by nearly a century and a half. The county’s rivers powered a run of 19th-century textile and shoe mills that drew waves of French-Canadian and, later, other immigrant labor into Dover, Somersworth, and Rochester, and that industrial economy defined the county’s three cities well into the 20th century before manufacturing declined and the University of New Hampshire and health care became the larger employers.

Getting There

The Spaulding Turnpike (NH Route 16) is the county’s main north–south corridor, linking Dover and Rochester to Portsmouth and the seacoast to the south and to the White Mountains to the north. US Route 4 runs east–west through Durham and Barrington on its way from Portsmouth to Concord, and NH Routes 108, 125, and 202A connect the smaller towns.

• Portsmouth — about 12 miles southeast
• Manchester — about 35 miles southwest
• Portland, Maine — about 45 miles northeast
• Boston, Massachusetts — about 65 miles south

Manchester-Boston Regional Airport is the nearest full-service commercial airport, about 40 miles from Dover.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Strafford County?
It is in southeastern New Hampshire, on the state’s seacoast, bordering Maine to the east.

What is the population of Strafford County?
130,889 at the 2020 census.

How big is Strafford County?
383 square miles (991 km2), making it the smallest county in New Hampshire by land area.

What is the county seat of Strafford County?
Dover.

How many towns are in Strafford County?
Three cities (Dover, Rochester, Somersworth) and ten New England towns, plus several unincorporated villages.

What ZIP codes are in Strafford County?
Codes range from 03820 (Dover) to 03887 (Middleton); see the ZIP Codes section above for the full list.

Is the University of New Hampshire in Strafford County?
Yes, UNH’s main campus is in Durham, in the southern part of the county.

More counties in this state: Towns and villages in New Hampshire.