Residents of Rockingham County, New Hampshire consider themselves the “Commerce Center of Southern New Hampshire.” They may be right; this county certainly seems one of the best locations in which to establish a home and a thriving business. The city of Portsmouth (in Rockingham County) has most recently been ranked by Money magazine as the fifth-best place to live in the US, based on the outstanding opportunities in education; strategic, central business location (60 minutes north of Boston); the area’s skilled, dedicated labor force; zero state income tax and an excellent quality of life.
The numbers bear out the claims: with a population of just under 300,000, the unemployment rate here is 6.7 percent, less than the national average. The area is affluent, also; the median income for a household in the county was $58,150, and the median income for a family was $66,345, higher than the national average. Only three percent of families in Rockingham County live below the poverty line.
Rockingham County is located in the southeastern portion of the state and contains all 18 miles of New Hampshire’s coastline. The county is bordered by Maine to the northeast and Massachusetts to the south. The county’s area covers 699 square miles. Its largest towns are Derry and Salem; businesses and industry most popular in the county include construction, electric, gas and sanitation services, retail trade, services and manufacturing. . Rockingham County includes one city, Portsmouth, and 36 towns. The county seat is Brentwood.
Rockingham County was home to New Hampshire’s first European settlements, Pannaway and Strawbery Banke in Portsmouth. The county contains all of the state’s 17 miles of Atlantic Ocean coastline; the Piscataqua River and Portsmouth Harbor separate the county from Maine, and it shares a 56-mile border to the south with Massachusetts. Adjacent counties include Strafford to the north, York County, Maine to the northeast, Essex County, Massachusetts to the south, Hillsborough to the west and Merrimack to the northwest.
Notable attractions include the Rockingham County Botanical Garden in Brentwood; Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, a collection of historic buildings from the 17th through 19th centuries; and Canobie Lake Park, an amusement park dating from 1902. Derry was home to poet Robert Frost, who taught at nearby Pinkerton Academy. His home, the Robert Frost Farm, has been preserved as a state park.
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