Bergen County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Table1. New Jersey Counties and Most Populous Cities and Townships: 2020 and 2010 Censuses, New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Accessed December 1, 2022. Located in the Gateway Region at the northeastern corner of New Jersey, Bergen County and its many inner suburbs constitute a highly developed part of the New York City metropolitan area, bordering the Hudson River; the George Washington Bridge, which crosses the Hudson, connects Bergen County with Manhattan. The county is part of the North Jersey region of the state.Willis, David P. "'This is how wars start': Does Central Jersey include both Ocean and Union counties?", Asbury Park Press, February 20, 2023. Accessed March 31, 2024. "North Jersey is defined as Sussex, Warren, Morris, Passaic, Bergen, Essex and Hudson counties; South Jersey would be Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, Atlantic, Salem, Cumberland and Cape May counties. But for Central, things get a little tricky. It would include Hunterdon, Somerset, Union, Middlesex, Mercer, Monmouth, and Ocean counties."
As of the 2020 United States census, the county's population was 955,732, its highest decennial count ever and an increase of 50,616 (+5.6%) from the 905,116 recorded at the 2010 census, which in turn reflected an increase of 20,998 (2.4%) from the 884,118 counted in the 2000 census. The United States Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program estimated a 2025 population of 977,026, an increase of 21,294 (+2.2%) from the 2020 decennial census.
The county is divided into 70 municipalities, the most of any county in New Jersey,Bergen County: Northeastern Workshop: Briefing Book, Regional Plan Association, November 2009. Accessed July 26, 2026. "Bergen County is the most populous county in New Jersey (over 900,000 residents), and also the one with the most local governments -- 70 municipalities on 246 square miles, an average of only 3.5 square miles/municipality." made up of 56 boroughs, nine townships, three cities, and two villages.Lang, Arnold. Bergen County's Townships and Municipalities, Genealogical Society of Bergen County. Accessed July 26, 2026. "Today, Bergen County is comprised of 70 municipalities - of these, there are 56 boroughs, 3 cities, 2 villages, and 9 townships, as listed below:" The county's most populous place, with 46,030 residents as of the 2020 census, is Hackensack, which is also its county seat.New Jersey County Map, New Jersey Department of State. Accessed December 22, 2022. Mahwah covers the largest area of any municipality, at .
Bergen County is one of the largest commercial hubs in both New Jersey and the United States, generating over $6 billion in annual revenues from retailers in Paramus alone, despite blue laws keeping most stores in the county and especially Paramus itself (which has even stricter blue laws than the rest of the county) open only six days per week. The county is one of the wealthiest counties in the United States, with a median household income of $109,497 (compared to $89,703 in New Jersey and $69,021 nationwide) and a per capita income of $55,710 (vs. $46,691 in the state and $37,638 in the U.S.) as of the 2017–2021 American Community Survey.QuickFacts Bergen County, New Jersey; New Jersey; United States, United States Census Bureau. Accessed July 25, 2023. Bergen County has some of the highest home prices in the United States, with the median sale price approximately $900,000 as of 2025 and maximum prices in the tens of millions of dollars. The county's park system includes 21 parks covering more than .Department of Parks, Bergen County, New Jersey. Accessed December 9, 2025.
Etymology The origin of the name of Bergen County is a matter of debate. It is believed that the county is named after one of the earliest settlements, Bergen, in modern-day Hudson County, New Jersey. Several sources also attribute the name to Bergen, Norway, while others attribute it to Bergen op Zoom in the Netherlands.Hutchinson, Viola L. The Origin of New Jersey Place Names, New Jersey Public Library Commission, May 1945. Accessed October 30, 2017. Some sources say that the name is derived from one of the earliest settlers of New Amsterdam (now New York City), Hans Hansen Bergen, a native of Norway, who arrived in New Netherland in 1633.
History
At the time of first European contact, Bergen County was inhabited by Native American people, particularly the Lenape Nation, whose subgroups included the Tappan, Hackensack, and Rumachenanck (later called the Haverstraw), as named by the Dutch colonists. Some of their descendants are included among the Ramapough Mountain Indians, recognized as a tribe by the state in 1980.Stoltz, Marsha A. "Federal, state rulings favor Ramapough nation in Mahwah", The Record, March 19, 2019. Accessed July 26, 2026. "Also on Monday, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal announced a settlement with the Ramapough Lenape Nation acknowledging that it is one of two New Jersey tribes that have been officially recognized as American Indian tribes in the state since 1980."Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 3031, State of New Jersey, filed January 8, 1980. Their ancestors had moved into the mountains to escape encroachment by Dutch and English colonists. Their descendants reside mostly in the northwest of the county, in nearby Passaic County and in Rockland County, New York, tracing their Lenape ancestry to speakers of the Munsee language, one of three major dialects of their language. Over the years, they absorbed other ethnicities by intermarriage.Romano, Jay. "3 Indian Tribes Stir Casino Fears", The New York Times, August 1, 1993. Accessed August 9, 2012. "Dr. Herbert C. Kraft, professor of anthropology at Seton Hall University in South Orange, said that determining whether the Ramapoughs are descendants of American Indians is 'a very fuzzy problem. My bias has always been that there are Indians among them but that they intermarried with various other groups,' Dr. Kraft said. Included in those other groups, he said, were white settlers and freed blacks."
In the 17th century, the Dutch considered the area comprising today's Bergen and Hudson counties as part of New Netherland, their colonial province of the Dutch Republic. The Dutch claimed it after Henry Hudson (sailing for the Dutch East India Company) explored Newark Bay and anchored his ship at Weehawken Cove in 1609.Clayton, W. Woodford; and Nelson, William. History of Bergen and Passaic Counties, New Jersey:With Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, p. 23. Everts & Peck, 1882. Accessed January 24, 2013. From an early date, the Dutch began to import African slaves to fill their labor needs. Bergen County eventually was the largest slaveholding county in the state, with nearly 20% of its population consisting of slaves in 1800."Bergen County Slavery" , Bergen County. Accessed July 13, 2012. The African slaves were used for labor at the ports to support shipping, as well as for domestic servants, trades, and farm labor.
Early settlement attempts by the Dutch colonists included Pavonia (1633), Vriessendael (1640), and Achter Col (1642), but the Native Americans repelled these settlements in Kieft's War (1643–1645) and the Peach War (1655). European settlers returned to the western shores of the Hudson River in the 1660 formation of Bergen Township (now part of Jersey City, New Jersey), which would become one of the earliest permanent European settlements in present-day New Jersey."Jersey City: America's Golden Door", Jersey City online, accessed March 19, 2007. "Jersey City, the second largest city in New Jersey, is the site of the first permanent European community in the state."
During the Second Anglo-Dutch War, on August 27, 1664, New Amsterdam's governor Peter Stuyvesant surrendered to the English Navy.Document: Articles of Capitulation, 1664, WNET, August 13, 2009. Accessed July 18, 2012. "On August 27, 1664, four English warships arrived in New Amsterdam to claim the colony under the orders of James, Duke of York. New Amsterdam had limited defenses, ammunition and manpower, so Dutch governor Peter Stuyvesant was forced to surrender without a shot in September." The English organized the Province of New Jersey in 1665, later splitting the territory into East Jersey and West Jersey in 1674. On November 30, 1675, the settlement Bergen and surrounding plantations and settlements were called Bergen County in an act passed by the province's General Assembly. In 1683, Bergen (along with the three other original counties of East Jersey) was officially recognized as an independent county by the Provincial Assembly.History of Bergen County, accessed August 23, 2006 Snyder, John P. The Story of New Jersey's Civil Boundaries: 1606–1968, Bureau of Geology and Topography; Trenton, New Jersey; 1969. p. 29. Accessed July 18, 2012.
Initially, Bergen County comprised only the land between the Hudson River and the Hackensack River, extending north to the border between East Jersey and New York. In January 1709, the boundaries were extended to include all of the current territory of Hudson County (formed in 1840) and portions of the current territory of Passaic County (formed in 1837). The 1709 borders were described as follows:
"Beginning at Constable's Hook, so along the bay and Hudson's River to the partition point between New Jersey and the province of New York; along this line and the line between East and West Jersey† to the Pequaneck River; down the Pequaneck and Passaic Rivers to the sound; and so following the sound to Constable's Hook the place of beginning." † The line between East and West Jersey here referred to is not the line finally adopted and known as the Lawrence line, which was run by John Lawrence in September and October 1743. It was the compromise line agreed upon between Governors Daniel Coxe and Robert Barclay in 1682, which ran a little north of Morristown to the Passaic River; thence up the Pequaneck to forty-one degrees of north latitude; and thence by a straight line due east to the New York State line. This line being afterward objected to by the East Jersey proprietors, the latter procured the running of the Lawrence line.
Bergen was the location of several battles and troop movements during the American Revolutionary War. Fort Lee's location on the bluffs of the New Jersey Palisades, opposite Fort Washington in Manhattan, made it a strategic position during the war. In November 1776, the Battle of Fort Lee took place as part of a British plan to capture George Washington and to resoundingly defeat the Continental Army, whose forces were divided and located in Fort Lee and Hackensack. After abandoning the defenses in Fort Lee and leaving behind considerable supplies, the Continental forces staged a hasty retreat through present-day Englewood, Teaneck, and Bergenfield, and across the Hackensack River at New Bridge Landing, one of the few sites where the river was crossed by a bridge. They destroyed the bridge to delay the British assault on Washington's headquarters in the village of Hackensack. The next day, George Washington retreated to Newark and left Hackensack via Polifly Road. British forces pursued, and Washington continued to retreat across New Jersey. The retreat allowed American forces to escape capture and regroup for subsequent successes against the British elsewhere in New Jersey later that winter.
Soon after the Battle of Princeton in January 1777, British forces realized that they were not able to spread themselves thin across New Jersey. Local militia retook Hackensack and the rest of Bergen County. Bergen County saw skirmishes throughout the war as armies from both sides maneuvered across the countryside.
The Baylor Massacre took place in 1778 in River Vale, resulting in severe losses for the Continentals.