Windham County, Connecticut

Windham County is a county in Connecticut, United States, in the state’s northeastern
corner, about 30 miles east of Hartford. It had a population of 116,418 at the 2020 census,
Connecticut’s least populous county, and covers 513 square miles (1,330 km2) of land
centred near 41°50′N 71°59′W.

Connecticut abolished county government statewide in 1960, so Windham County has no county
seat and no county administration today — its FIPS code, 09015, survives only as a
statistical label. Brooklyn served as the county’s seat and courthouse town from 1726, and
Willimantic, part of the Town of Windham, held that role from 1893 until the 1960 abolition; its
postal code is 06226. The county comprises 15 towns, Connecticut’s base unit of local
government, and it runs on Eastern Time.

Towns & Villages in Windham County

Windham County has 19 named places on record: its 15 incorporated towns, which govern every
acre of the county between them, and four villages within those towns that the Census Bureau
recognizes as separate census-designated places (CDPs). Connecticut has no additional layer of
incorporated cities, boroughs or civil townships below the town — a “town” here
is a full municipality, not a subdivision. The Town column below shows which of the 15 towns each
village sits inside.

Willimantic and Danielson are the two population centers most people mean when they think of
“Windham County” — together they hold about a fifth of the county’s
residents, though neither is its own municipality. Moosup and North Grosvenordale are smaller
mill villages, both without a 2020 CDP population count published separately from their towns, so
those cells read —.

ZIP Codes

• 06226 — Willimantic, in the Town of Windham
• 06239 — Danielson, also serves Killingly’s South Killingly section
• 06241, 06243 — other Killingly post offices
• 06374 — Plainfield village; 06354 — Moosup; 06387 — Wauregan; 06332 —
  Central Village, all in the Town of Plainfield
• 06260 — Putnam
• 06255, 06262, 06277 — North Grosvenordale, Quaddick and Thompson village, all in the
  Town of Thompson
• 06234, 06239 — Brooklyn
• 06281, 06282 — Woodstock
• 06331 — Canterbury
• 06258, 06259 — Pomfret
• 06278 — Ashford
• 06377, 06373 — Sterling
• 06235 — Chaplin
• 06247 — Hampton
• 06242 — Eastford
• 06264 — Scotland

Because a Connecticut town is itself the addressing unit, nearly every village here shares its
ZIP with the town post office nearest it rather than carrying one of its own.

Geography

Windham County sits entirely within Connecticut’s “Quiet Corner,” a belt of
low hills and second-growth forest in the state’s northeast, well east of the Connecticut
River valley. Of its 521 square miles total, 513 are land and about 8 are water, roughly 1.6
percent — the county has no large natural lake, and its water is mostly rivers and mill
ponds. The Natchaug and Willimantic rivers meet at Willimantic to form the Shetucket River, which
continues south to join the Quinebaug River near Norwich; the National Park Service has designated
both rivers’ valleys here as the Quinebaug and Shetucket Rivers Valley National Heritage
Corridor. The county’s high point, Snow Hill in Ashford, reaches 1,210 feet.

Worcester County, Massachusetts, borders Windham to the north; Providence County and Kent
County, Rhode Island, border it to the east; New London County lies to the south; and Tolland
County lies to the west. Worcester County, Providence County, Kent County, New London County and Tolland County all border Windham
directly.

Demographics

Windham County had a population of 116,418 at the 2020 census. Windham and Killingly are its
two largest towns, together holding more than a third of the county’s residents, and
Willimantic alone, as a village within the Town of Windham, accounts for roughly 16,000 of that
town’s population. Median household income in the county was $71,418 in 2021 (Data USA),
well below Connecticut’s 2023 statewide figure of $91,665. Population density works out to
about 227 people per square mile of land, the lowest of any Connecticut county and a fraction of
the density in the state’s Fairfield and Hartford county suburbs.

Economy & Local Life

Health care and social assistance is the county’s largest employment sector, with about
8,819 workers, followed by manufacturing at 8,209 and retail trade at 7,720. Eastern Connecticut
State University, founded in 1889 and based in Willimantic, enrolled about 4,125 students as of
spring 2022 and is the town’s largest single employer outside health care. Windham Hospital,
also in Willimantic, and Day Kimball Hospital, founded in 1894 in Putnam’s West End, are the
county’s two acute-care hospitals. Quinebaug Valley Community College’s main campus is
in Danielson. Willimantic’s nineteenth-century textile mills, run on water power from the
Willimantic River, earned it the nickname “Thread City”; Putnam’s own former
mill buildings and downtown storefronts now house one of New England’s largest antique
districts, developed from vacant mill space in the late twentieth century.

History

The Connecticut General Assembly formed Windham County on 12 May 1726 out of parts of Hartford
and New London counties, naming it for Windham in England. Brooklyn was incorporated as its own
town, separate from Canterbury and Pomfret, in May 1786.

The county’s best-known colonial episode is the 1754 “Battle of the Frogs.”
Residents of Windham woke one summer night to a deafening roar from a nearby mill pond and, fearing
a French and Indian War attack, sent out armed scouts. They found the pond’s bullfrogs dead
by the hundreds, apparently fighting each other over a drought-shrunken water supply. Rather than
live the story down, Windham adopted the frog as a civic emblem; Willimantic’s Thread City
Crossing bridge now carries four 11-foot bronze frog sculptures at its corners in the
event’s honor.

Getting There

Interstate 395 runs north–south through the county’s east side, linking Killingly
and Plainfield to Norwich and Worcester. US Routes 6 and 44 cross east–west, and Connecticut
Routes 12 and 169 run the length of the county; no interstate crosses its western towns.

• Hartford — about 30 miles west
• Providence, Rhode Island — about 30 miles east
• Worcester, Massachusetts — about 25 miles north
• Norwich — about 20 miles south

Bradley International Airport, north of Hartford, is the nearest major commercial airport, about
40 miles from Willimantic. No Amtrak train currently stops in Windham County; the nearest station
is Providence, Rhode Island, on the Northeast Corridor, about 30 miles east.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Windham County located?
It occupies Connecticut’s northeastern corner, the “Quiet Corner,” bordered by
Worcester County, Massachusetts, Providence and Kent counties in Rhode Island, and Connecticut’s
New London and Tolland counties.

What is the population of Windham County?
116,418 at the 2020 census, Connecticut’s least populous county.

How big is Windham County?
521 square miles total (513 land, 8 water), or 1,330 km2 of land.

Does Windham County have a county seat?
No. Connecticut abolished county government in 1960. Brooklyn held the role from 1726 and
Willimantic from 1893 until the abolition.

How many towns are in Windham County?
Fifteen: Ashford, Brooklyn, Canterbury, Chaplin, Eastford, Hampton, Killingly, Plainfield,
Pomfret, Putnam, Scotland, Sterling, Thompson, Windham and Woodstock.

What ZIP codes does Windham County use?
06226 for Willimantic, 06239 for Danielson, 06260 for Putnam, and a separate code for each of the
county’s other towns, listed above.

What is Windham County known for?
The 1754 “Battle of the Frogs” in Windham, commemorated by Willimantic’s Frog
Bridge, and its nineteenth-century textile-mill towns, Willimantic and Putnam among them.

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