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The One Minute Geographer: The Triplets: Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont — New Hampshire’s Population
We’ve looked at Maine’s population distribution and density in previous posts, but how about New Hampshire and Vermont? First take a look at the following chart.
In all three cases the biggest metropolitan area in each state has between 30% and 40% of the state’s population. Note that Maine no longer has the most people of the three; New Hampshire passed Maine in 2020 by 6,000 people.
We’ll focus on New Hampshire in this post. New Hampshire is like Maine in having two major populated corridors that you can trace on a map with your fingers. The eastern corridor is along I-95 and the coastal route of old US 1. The inland corridor is I-93. All roads lead to Boston!
In fact, the two counties of the eastern corridor, Rockingham and Strafford, are officially part of the Boston Metropolitan Statistical Area. To the west, the Manchester-Nashua metropolitan area is its own MSA but close enough that it is included in what the Census Bureau considers the larger “Combined Boston” area. Almost three-fourths (74%) of New Hampshire’s population is close to these two southern corridors, basically, the state’s four southernmost counties.
