By Reshmee Jugmohun, REALTOR®, Licensed Real Estate Salesperson in New Jersey, Prominent Properties Sotheby's International Realty. Published August 25, 2026.
Bergen County is 70 separate municipalities, each with its own government, its own tax rate, its own services and its own school arrangement. That is why there is no single answer to what living in Bergen County is like: the county is defined by its fragmentation more than by anything else. What follows is how that plays out in practice, what the different parts of the county are actually like, and the one rule that surprises every newcomer.
How many towns are in Bergen County, and why does that matter?
Seventy. That is not an approximation, and it is a remarkably high number for a county of roughly 234 square miles. Bergen County's municipal directory lists all 70, ranging from boroughs of a few thousand people to the city of Hackensack, the county seat since 1710.
This is a piece of local history worth knowing because it explains almost everything else. In the 1890s, New Jersey changed its law to make it very easy for a community to incorporate as a borough. What followed in Bergen County is remembered as "Boroughitis": a wave of incorporations as neighborhoods broke away and became independent municipalities. The county reached 70 by 1924, and it has stayed there ever since.
For anyone moving here, that means concrete rather than historical. Each of those 70 municipalities sets its own property tax rate, runs or contracts its own services, writes its own ordinances, and makes its own arrangements for schools. Two houses on either side of a street that happens to be a municipal boundary can sit in different tax jurisdictions, with different garbage collection, parking rules, snow ordinances, and school districts.
It also changes how you read two listings side by side. The same asking price in two municipalities can carry different annual tax bills, a different set of services included or excluded, and a different school district, none of which appears in the listing photographs. A comparison that looks like it is between two houses is frequently a comparison between two municipalities that happen to contain a house each. That is the single most useful mental adjustment to make when you start looking here.
So "I am looking in Bergen County" is a starting point, not a search. The county is the region. The municipality is the decision, and it's more consequential here than in places where a single township covers a much larger area.
What are the different parts of the county like?
The best way to divide Bergen County is by geography, because the landscape genuinely changes across it and the housing follows it. These are not rankings, and they are not official neighborhoods. They are the practical groupings.
The northwest, in the Ramapo foothills. This is the county's highest and least dense part, where the terrain rises toward the Ramapo Mountains. Lots are generally larger, tree cover is heavier, and the county's biggest open spaces are here. It is the furthest part of the county from the Hudson crossings.
The Pascack Valley and the river towns. Running north to south through the middle of the county, these are the towns that grew along the rail line and the Hackensack River. Many have a compact center near a station, with housing stock that spreads outward from it.
The eastern edge, along the Palisades. The Hudson River side of the county sits atop the Palisades cliffs, with direct views across to Manhattan in places. This is the closest part of the county to the George Washington Bridge, and it is generally the densest, with more apartment and condominium stock than anywhere else in Bergen.
The central corridor. Where Route 4 and Route 17 cross, the county turns into one of the most concentrated retail districts in the country. Paramus sits in the middle of it. Living near the corridor means convenience measured in minutes and traffic measured in the same units.
The south, toward the Meadowlands. The lower end of the county flattens out into the Meadowlands basin, with a mix of older established boroughs, industrial land, and the sports and entertainment complex. It is the part of the county with the easiest access to the Turnpike.
What is there to do here?
The county park system is the answer most newcomers underestimate. Bergen County operates 16 county parks and reservations across roughly 9,800 acres, according to the county Parks Department, and they are genuinely varied rather than 16 versions of the same thing.
At the large end, Ramapo Valley County Reservation and Campgaw Mountain Reservation, both in the northwest, are hiking-scale open space rather than municipal greens. Van Saun County Park holds the Bergen County Zoo. Overpeck County Park covers a large stretch of the eastern county. Saddle River County Park runs as a linear park along its namesake river through several municipalities, which makes it unusually easy to reach from a number of towns at once. Others include Darlington, Pascack Brook, Wood Dale, Riverside, Dahnert's Lake, Hackensack River and Borg's Woods Nature Preserve.
The county also runs six golf courses, the J.A. McFaul Environmental Center, two horseback riding areas and nine historic sites. Most county parks open at 7:30 a.m. and close half an hour after sunset, which is worth knowing before planning an early or late visit. Check the county Parks Department pages for current hours, permit requirements and seasonal closures, since those change.
Beyond the parks, the pattern is downtowns. Many Bergen municipalities have a real center with independent restaurants and shops rather than only highway retail, and they differ enormously in scale and feel. Farmers markets run seasonally across many of the towns. And the Hudson overlooks along the Palisades give you a view of the Manhattan skyline that people pay a great deal to have from the other side.
What about the Sunday blue laws?
This is what catches every newcomer, and it is genuinely unusual: Bergen County restricts non-essential retail sales on Sundays, and it is the last county in the United States still doing so at this scale. As of 2026, the restriction is in force.
Broadly, the Sunday restriction covers categories such as clothing, furniture, home furnishings, appliances, and building supplies, while restaurants, grocery stores, pharmacies, and entertainment venues are not. That is the shape of it rather than the letter of it, and the letter matters, because individual municipalities may impose rules stricter than the county's. Paramus, which contains much of the county's retail, is the well-known example of a town whose own ordinances go further than the county rule.
There is also live litigation. A dispute involving the American Dream complex and the Borough of Paramus over Sunday operation is working its way through the courts. I am not going to characterize the merits or guess at the outcome, and you should be cautious of anyone who does.
The practical version for a resident is simple. Sunday in Bergen County is a day for restaurants, groceries, parks, and errands that are not shopping for goods, and most people who live here either plan around it or come to like it. If you need to know exactly what applies to a specific store or town, check the current position with Bergen County and the municipality itself, because the general rule and the local rule are not always the same.
How do you actually get around the county?
Bergen County is a driving county for internal trips, and that's structural rather than cultural. The rail lines run roughly north to south and are built to carry people toward Hoboken and the city. They are not built to move you across the county from east to west, so a trip of a few miles between two Bergen towns is almost always a car trip even when both towns have a station.
The road network does the work instead. Route 17 runs north to south through the middle of the county, Route 4 runs east to west toward the George Washington Bridge, and Route 208 serves the northwest. Interstate 80, the Garden State Parkway, and the New Jersey Turnpike all clip or cross the county. Traffic on the Route 4 and Route 17 corridors is a real and daily fact, particularly around the retail district, and it is worth experiencing at a weekday hour before assuming a location is convenient.
NJ Transit also runs bus service within and across the county, which is more useful for some trips than the rail map suggests. Commuting into Manhattan specifically is a different question with a different answer, and it deserves its own treatment rather than a paragraph here.
How do the school arrangements work?
Structurally, and this is a structural answer only, Bergen County's fragmentation shows up in schools more than almost anywhere else. Because there are 70 municipalities, there are a great many small districts, and they are not all organized the same way.
Some municipalities run a full K-12 district. Many others run their own elementary and middle schools and then send students to a regional high school district shared with neighboring towns. Those sending relationships are long-standing arrangements, and they mean a student's high school is not always in the municipality they live in.
That's genuinely important to establish early, because it is easy to assume a town's schools are self-contained when they are not. Ask which district a specific address falls into, and ask whether the high school is local or regional.
I am not the right source for how any given district performs, and neither is any agent. The New Jersey Department of Education publishes school performance reports for every district and school in the state, and that's where to look. Read them yourself and reach your own conclusions.
What are the real trade-offs between one part of the county and another?
Rather than ranking places, here are the axes the county actually varies along. Locate yourself on each one and the map narrows quickly.
Close to the Hudson, with more land. The eastern edge is minutes from the George Washington Bridge and is the county's densest part. The northwest has the largest lots and the most open space, and it is the furthest out.
On a rail line, against car-first. A station in the municipality changes daily life if you travel toward the city. Many Bergen towns have no station at all and are entirely car-dependent.
A walkable center against a quiet street. Some towns have a real downtown you can walk to for dinner. Others are residential throughout, with the retail on a highway. Both exist within a few miles of each other, repeatedly, across the county.
Convenience against traffic. Proximity to the Route 4 and Route 17 corridor buys you almost any errand within ten minutes. It also makes the corridor's traffic a permanent feature of your week.
One municipality against another on services. Because there are 70 of them, the things a town does for you differ in ways that are invisible until you live there: whether garbage collection is municipal or private, how leaf and yard waste are handled, what the parking rules are overnight, how quickly sidewalks must be cleared after snow. None of these decide a move on their own, and all of them shape a year.
Older housing stock against newer. Much of Bergen was built out across the twentieth century, so housing age varies street by street, with the systems, room sizes, and layouts of each era.
None of these has a correct answer. The question is only which of them you would actually trade away, and most people find that easier to answer than "where should I live". You can see how the housing stock varies across the county on the Bergen County listings page. If you are moving out from New York City specifically, what actually changes covers the money, the commute and the car question in detail, and if you are coming from further afield the relocating to New Jersey guide covers the wider move.
Frequently asked questions
What is the county seat of Bergen County?
Hackensack, and it has been since 1710. The county courthouse and county administrative offices are there, along with the county clerk and surrogate. For most residents, the practical relevance is that county-level business, including deeds, records, and jury service, points to Hackensack rather than to your own municipality.
What is the difference between a borough, a township and a city in New Jersey?
They are different forms of municipal government, not different sizes or statuses. New Jersey allows several forms, and they vary in how the governing body is structured and how executive authority is divided. In practice, a borough and a township next door to each other deliver much the same services. The label tells you about the form of government the municipality adopted, often more than a century ago, and very little about what the place is like.
Which services come from the county and which from my town?
Broadly, the county runs the park system, the county road network, the county courts, the county clerk, and several shared services. Your municipality handles local policing, local roads, local zoning and construction permits, garbage and recycling arrangements, and the school district. Because there are 70 municipalities, the municipal side varies considerably: two neighboring towns can handle the same service in completely different ways.
How do I find out exactly what my own town allows on a Sunday?
Ask the municipal clerk's office directly, and check the town's ordinances rather than relying on the county-level summary. This is the most common thing people get wrong when they arrive, because the county rule is the floor and a municipality can be stricter. A phone call to the clerk is faster than reading the code and gives you the current position.
Why is the American Dream complex open on Sundays?
That is precisely what is being litigated. The complex operates on the basis that its situation differs from ordinary Bergen County retail, and the Borough of Paramus disputes that. The case is unresolved. I would not rely on any particular outcome when deciding where to live, and nothing about it changes how the rule applies to conventional retail elsewhere in the county today.
Which airports serve Bergen County?
For scheduled commercial flights, Newark Liberty International is the usual choice, with LaGuardia and JFK reachable across the river. Teterboro Airport is physically in Bergen County, spanning Teterboro, Moonachie, and Hasbrouck Heights, and is owned and operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, but it is a general aviation airport rather than a commercial one, so you don't book a ticket from there.
Is there public transportation within the county, or only into Manhattan?
Both, but they are unequal. The rail lines are oriented toward Hoboken and the city, so they serve travel out of the county far better than travel across it. NJ Transit bus routes do connect points within Bergen County and are genuinely useful on some corridors. For most day-to-day internal travel, though, residents drive.
Do I need a permit for the county parks?
General access to the county parks is open, but specific activities such as reserving a picnic area, using certain facilities, or taking part in some seasonal activities can require a permit or a fee, and some carry residency conditions. The Bergen County Parks Department publishes the current requirements, and they change seasonally, so check there rather than assuming.
Do Bergen County libraries share a borrowing system?
Yes, and it is one of the quietly useful things about living here. Bergen County's public libraries participate in a long-established cooperative borrowing consortium, known for years as BCCLS, which lets members borrow from and return to participating libraries across the region rather than only their own town's. Join through your municipal library.
Where does Bergen County actually begin and end?
Bergen is the northeastern corner of New Jersey. The New York State line forms its northern boundary, the Hudson River its eastern one, and it meets Passaic County to the west and Hudson and Essex counties to the south. It matters more than it sounds: because the county is small and heavily subdivided, people routinely live in Bergen and work, shop or socialize in an adjoining county without much thought about the line.
If you are weighing up parts of the county and want to talk it through, call me on +1 (201) 312-8763.