The town that gained the most residents in every NJ county

When I wrote this week that 498 of New Jersey’s 564 towns are growing, the obvious next question was the one I asked myself: what about my county?

So I went back to the state’s population estimates and pulled the town that added the most people in each of our 21 counties, from the 2020 census to July 1, 2025.

Your county’s winner

• Atlantic: Hamilton Township, up 1,361 (5.0%)
• Bergen: Fair Lawn, up 2,201 (6.3%)
• Burlington: Mount Laurel, up 3,105 (7.0%)
• Camden: Cherry Hill, up 5,412 (7.3%)
• Cape May: Sea Isle City, up 10 (0.5%)
• Cumberland: Vineland, up 1,923 (3.2%)
• Essex: Newark, up 12,259 (3.9%)
• Gloucester: Woolwich, up 2,281 (18.1%)
• Hudson: Jersey City, up 9,564 (3.3%)
• Hunterdon: Raritan Township, up 1,834 (7.8%)
• Mercer: West Windsor, up 3,321 (11.3%)
• Middlesex: Old Bridge, up 3,352 (5.0%)
• Monmouth: Long Branch, up 1,654 (5.2%)
• Morris: Rockaway Township, up 2,387 (9.4%)
• Ocean: Lakewood, up 8,607 (6.4%)
• Passaic: Paterson, up 2,061 (1.3%)
• Salem: Pittsgrove, up 262 (3.0%)
• Somerset: Somerville, up 2,319 (18.8%)
• Sussex: Sparta, up 831 (4.2%)
• Union: Elizabeth, up 4,377 (3.2%)
• Warren: Lopatcong, up 761 (8.7%)

Cape May is the outlier

Look at Cape May again. Sea Isle City is the only town in the county that gained anyone at all, and it added 10 people. The other 15 towns all got smaller.

Part of that is how the count works. Summer homes don’t count. The Census counts people where they live most of the year.

Five counties where every town grew

Every single town in Gloucester, Mercer, Middlesex, Salem and Union counties gained residents. Not one went backward.

SEE ALSO: 498 NJ towns are growing. Here are the ones gaining the most.

Walpack in Sussex County went from seven to eight residents since 2020. | NPS Photo / J. Grier

A few that made me look twice

Garwood in Union County is up 21%. Little Falls in Passaic County is up nearly 15%. And Plumsted in Ocean County is up almost 24%, the fastest growth of any town with at least 5,000 people.

And then there’s Walpack in Sussex County, one of the ghost towns I plan to visit next month. It went from seven residents to eight. One new neighbor. I’d love to know who it is.

ALSO: NJ’s smallest town now has 3 residents, and it’s not Walpack