Vermont county map

How Vermont’s counties are laid out

Vermont’s 14 counties cover 9,616 square miles, an average of about 690 square miles each. As in the rest of New England, the county is a weak layer of government: it has no elected legislature and no taxing power, and its main functions are the superior court, the sheriff, the probate court and a pair of elected assistant judges. Towns do nearly everything else. County seats are called shire towns, following English usage, and several are villages rather than the largest place in the county — Hyde Park (Lamoille), Guildhall (Essex), Chelsea (Orange) and Newfane (Windham) are all small.

The first counties were created by the independent Republic of Vermont: Bennington and Cumberland in 1778–1779 (Cumberland was later split into Windham and Windsor), then Orange and Rutland in 1781 and Addison, Chittenden and Windsor by 1785. After statehood in 1791 the north was organised as settlers moved up the Champlain Valley and the Connecticut: Caledonia, Essex, Franklin and Orleans in 1792–1796, Grand Isle in 1802, Washington (first called Jefferson) in 1810 and finally Lamoille in 1835.

Names honour early figures (Bennington for Governor Benning Wentworth of New Hampshire, Chittenden for the first governor, Addison, Rutland, Windsor and Windham for English and colonial places), and geography (Grand Isle for the islands in Lake Champlain, Lamoille for the river, Essex, Orleans and Caledonia for places in England, France and Scotland). Vermont has no independent cities and no consolidated city-counties. Montpelier, the smallest state capital in the country, is the shire town of Washington County.

All 14 counties of Vermont

Five county facts

• Largest by area: Windsor County, shire town Woodstock, about 970 square miles between the Green Mountains and the Connecticut River. Rutland and Windham counties are next, each above 780 square miles.
• Smallest by area: Grand Isle County, shire town North Hero, about 80 square miles of land on the islands and the Alburgh peninsula in Lake Champlain — more than twice that once the lake water is counted.
• Most populous: Chittenden County, shire town Burlington, with about 168,000 people in 2020 out of Vermont’s 643,077. Rutland, Washington and Windsor counties follow, each around 55,000–60,000.
• Least populous: Essex County, shire town Guildhall, in the forested Northeast Kingdom, with about 6,000 people. Grand Isle County has about 7,300.
• Oldest and newest: Bennington County (1779) is the oldest surviving county; Lamoille County, shire town Hyde Park, created in 1835, is the newest. There are no independent cities.

Reading the map

Press Streets and zoom in on the highlighted state to see county lines. The spine of the Green Mountains runs north–south through the middle of the state, and most county boundaries either follow the ridge or run across it: Bennington, Rutland, Addison, Chittenden, Franklin and Grand Isle lie on the western, Champlain side; Windham, Windsor, Orange, Caledonia and Essex on the Connecticut River side; Washington, Lamoille and Orleans straddle the centre and north. The western boundary of Grand Isle, Chittenden and Addison counties is the middle of Lake Champlain, and the eastern boundary of the river counties is the low-water mark on the Vermont bank of the Connecticut, which belongs to New Hampshire. The whole state keeps Eastern Time.

Related maps

• Vermont map — cities, borders and geography.
• Blank Vermont map and printable Vermont map.
• Montpelier, the state capital, in Washington County.
• Neighbouring county maps: New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts.
• New England · the Northeast · Eastern Time Zone.
• Geography: Appalachian Mountains, Major US lakes, Mountain ranges.
• All US county maps.