The harbor town the Puritans laid out in nine squares in 1638, where Yale grew up beside the Green, James Hillhouse's elms gave the Elm City its name, and oystermen, carriage makers and gunsmiths made a working port.

New Haven County · Record checked October 11, 2026

134,023Population2020 census1
1638Foundeda city since 1784, with Roger Sherman as first mayor1
16 acresThe Greenthe center square of the nine-square plan1
24Carriage shopsin 1845, employing 460 people, the city's biggest industry2
71National Registerplaces, all still standing3

New Haven on the map

Click the map to look closer.

Map of New Haven, Connecticut in 2026, with the Green, the harbor, East Rock, West Rock and 34 numbered landmarks

2026

New Haven today

By KNOWOL

Shaded hills from West Hills and Westville down to the harbor and out to the East Shore, every street from Chapel to Whalley, Fair Haven, Morris Cove and City Point by name, and a guide of 34 numbered landmarks with the National Historic Landmarks and National Register sites marked.4

See the 2026 printMore about this map

The story of New Haven

The man who planted the Elm City

New Haven got its nickname from one man's shovel. Between 1787 and 1796 James Hillhouse brought young elms from his farm out toward Meriden and planted them in rows along the town's streets and around the Green. A 1911 history says he set out many with his own hands, helped by a boy who held the trees or drove the stakes while Hillhouse shoveled in the dirt. That boy was Jeremiah Day, who grew up to be president of Yale. In 1792 Hillhouse also laid out Hillhouse Avenue, 105 feet wide, through the family farm, and its arching elms became famous. Most of those trees are long gone, but the name stuck.561

The judges on West Rock

In 1661 two of the judges who had signed King Charles I's death warrant, Edward Whalley and William Goffe, fled to New Haven. John Davenport helped hide them, and on May 15 they first lodged in a cluster of huge stone pillars near the top of West Rock, a spot where they could watch the harbor. Richard Sperry, who farmed on the far side of the ridge, sent food up with his boys, tied in a cloth and left on a certain stump. One night a panther put its head into the opening and glared at them, and one judge ran all the way down to Sperry's house. They left the cave soon after. Someone later carved on the rock: Opposition to Tyrants is Obedience to God.781

Oysters and the Long Wharf

New Haven has always lived off its harbor. In 1772 the Assembly let the owners of Long Wharf run a lottery to pay for it, and in 1779 British raiders burned the shipping tied up there. When the steamboat United States began regular runs to New York in 1824, the crew fired a cannon from the bow coming into port so the stagecoaches for Hartford and Boston would be ready, and the ticket system later used on steamboats everywhere was first tried on board. Out in Fair Haven, oystermen sailed as far as the Chesapeake by about 1823. In 1834 the schooner Mary and Martha laid down 1,600 bushels in Morris Cove, and Fair Haven became a great oyster shipping center.910111213

Through the years

23 moments from 1638 to today.

  1. 1638About five hundred Puritans led by John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton sail into the harbor and lay out a town of nine squares.4
  2. 1640The plantation of Quinnipiac is renamed New Haven, haven meaning harbor.1
  3. 1641New Haven sends families to start a colony on Delaware Bay. The Dutch and Swedes drive them out within months.14
  4. 1648The town sets aside land on what is now Elm Street for the college John Davenport hoped to found.15
  5. 1661Two of the judges who condemned Charles I first lodge in the rocks on West Rock now called the Judges' Cave.7
  6. 1664The New Haven Colony is merged into Connecticut.1
  7. 1716The Collegiate School moves here from Old Saybrook. Two years later it's renamed Yale College.1
  8. 1752Connecticut Hall is finished on the college yard. It still stands.4
  9. 1772The Assembly lets the owners of Long Wharf hold a lottery to pay for the wharf.9
  10. 1779General Tryon's raiders take the town and burn the shipping and buildings at Long Wharf.10
  11. 1784New Haven becomes a city, with Roger Sherman as its first mayor.1
  12. 1792James Hillhouse lays out Hillhouse Avenue, 105 feet wide, through his family farm.5
  13. 1796Grove Street Cemetery is organized to replace the crowded burying ground on the Green.4
  14. 1798Tomlinson's Bridge, a wooden toll bridge to East Haven, is finished.16
  15. 1824The steamboat United States begins regular trips between New Haven and New York.11
  16. 1827With a visiting priest in town over a Sunday, New Haven's Catholics gather for worship at No. 5 Long Wharf.17
  17. 1834The schooner Mary and Martha brings 1,600 bushels of oysters to plant in Morris Cove.13
  18. 1839The Africans of the Amistad are tried in New Haven's federal court.1
  19. 1845Carriage making is the city's leading industry, with 24 shops and 460 workers.2
  20. 1861Henry Austin's City Hall is finished on Church Street, facing the Green.18
  21. 1878New Haven opens the first commercial telephone exchange in the country, with six subscribers.19
  22. 1914The Yale Bowl opens, the first bowl-shaped stadium in the country.4
  23. 1973The city and its neighbors plant 72 cherry trees in Wooster Square.4

Places to see

The numbers match the landmark guide printed on the 2026 map.

  • 1Yale BowlNear the West Haven line. The first bowl stadium, 1914.
  • 5New Haven City HallChurch Street. Henry Austin's High Victorian Gothic, 1861.
  • 10Five Mile Point LighthouseLighthouse Point Park. Brownstone tower of 1847.
  • 11Center Church on the GreenThe Green. Ithiel Town's church of 1812.Visit their website
  • 15Connecticut HallYale's Old Campus. Yale's oldest building, finished 1752.
  • 20Fort Nathan HaleEast Shore. Forts from 1659 to the Civil War.
  • 21New Haven GreenDowntown. Center square of the 1638 plan.
  • 31Wooster Square Historic DistrictEast of downtown. Little Italy and the cherry trees.
  • 32Peabody Museum of Natural HistoryWhitney Avenue. The Great Hall of Dinosaurs.Visit their website
  • 34Dixwell Avenue Congregational United Church of ChristDixwell. Congregation founded in 1820.Visit their website

On the National Register

21 of the 71 places in New Haven on the National Register of Historic Places that still stand today, oldest first, and why each one matters. See the full list of National Register places in New Haven.3

  • New Haven Green Historic District

    National Historic Landmark

    Listed 1970 · Chapel, College, Elm and Church Streets

    The 16-acre center square of the colonists' nine-square plan, laid out by John Brockett and first called the marketplace. Its three early churches, Center, United and Trinity, made it a National Historic Landmark district.20

  • Fort Nathan Hale

    Listed 1970 · Southern end of Woodward Avenue

    A 20-acre park on the east shore holding the sites of a fort of about 1657, the Black Rock Fort taken by the British in 1779, the fort rebuilt for the War of 1812 and a Civil War fort with deep earthen bunkers.21

  • Morris House

    Listed 1972 · 325 Lighthouse Road

    The Pardee-Morris House, one of New Haven's oldest buildings, probably begun in the late 1600s by the family of Thomas Morris. The British partly burned it in 1779, and it's now a museum of the New Haven Museum.22

  • Connecticut Hall, Yale University

    National Historic Landmark

    Built 1752 · Listed 1966 · 1017 Chapel Street

    Yale's oldest building and the only survivor of the Old Brick Row, a Georgian dormitory for two hundred years and now home to the philosophy department. A National Historic Landmark.23

  • Grove Street Cemetery

    National Historic Landmark

    Listed 1997 · 200 Grove Street

    Organized in 1796 to replace the crowded burying ground on the Green, and called the first private, nonprofit cemetery in the world, with family plots and paved, named lanes. Roger Sherman, Noah Webster and Eli Whitney are buried here.24

    Visit their website

  • Wooster Square Historic District

    Listed 1971 · Columbus Avenue, Wooster Square, Chapel and Court Streets

    Named for General David Wooster, a neighborhood of fine 1840s houses that became New Haven's Little Italy, home of Pepe's and Sally's. The 72 cherry trees planted in 1973 bring a festival every spring.25

  • Hillhouse Avenue Historic District

    Listed 1985 · Sachem, Temple, Trumbull and Prospect Streets, Whitney and Hillhouse Avenues

    The avenue James Hillhouse laid out, lined with 19th-century mansions including the Yale president's house. Charles Dickens and Mark Twain both called it the most beautiful street in America.26

  • Five Mile Point Lighthouse

    Built 1847 · Listed 1990 · Lighthouse Point Park

    An 80-foot octagonal tower of East Haven brownstone built by Marcus Bassett to replace a wooden light of 1805 at the harbor entrance, about five miles from downtown. It was retired in 1877.27

  • James Dwight Dana House

    National Historic Landmark

    Built 1849 · Listed 1966 · 24 Hillhouse Avenue

    Henry Austin's Italianate house for the Yale geologist James Dwight Dana, who showed that geology was a far broader science than the study of single rocks. A National Historic Landmark.28

  • Quinnipiac River Historic District

    Listed 1984 · Quinnipiac Avenue, Lexington, Chapel, Ferry, Pine, Front and Lombard Streets

    Most of the old maritime village of Fair Haven on both banks of the Quinnipiac, grown up around a ferry and made busy by oysters. Fair Haven joined the city in 1871. The district holds 524 buildings and the Grand Avenue Swing Bridge.29

  • Lafayette B. Mendel House

    National Historic Landmark

    Built about 1858 · Listed 1976 · 18 Trumbull Street

    Home from 1900 to 1924 of the Yale biochemist Lafayette Mendel, who helped discover vitamins A and B and greatly widened what was known about nutrition. A National Historic Landmark.30

  • Winchester Repeating Arms Company Historic District

    Listed 1988 · Hamden town line, Mansfield, Hazel and Division Streets, Winchester Avenue and Sherman Parkway

    The surviving works of one of the nation's foremost arms makers and the worker neighborhoods around them, New Haven's most intact picture of a factory and the homes it filled.31

  • New Haven City Hall

    Built 1861 · Listed 1975 · 161 Church Street

    Henry Austin's City Hall and the courthouse of 1871 to 1873 beside it, early High Victorian Gothic buildings on the east side of the Green. The front was saved when much of the rest came down in 1976, and the Amistad memorial stands before it.18

  • Othniel C. Marsh House

    National Historic Landmark

    Built 1878 · Listed 1966 · 360 Prospect Street

    Home of the paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh until his death in 1899, with grounds that are now the Marsh Botanical Garden. A National Historic Landmark.32

  • Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station

    National Historic Landmark

    Built 1882 · Listed 1966 · 123 Huntington Street

    The first state agricultural experiment station in the country, founded in 1875 and on Prospect Hill since 1882. A National Historic Landmark.33

    Visit their website

  • Russell Henry Chittenden House

    National Historic Landmark

    Listed 1975 · 83 Trumbull Street

    Home from 1887 to 1943 of Russell Henry Chittenden, the Yale professor called the father of American biochemistry. A National Historic Landmark.34

  • East Rock Park

    Listed 1997 · State, Davis and Livingston Streets, Park and Mitchell Drives and Whitney Avenue

    A 427-acre park around the red trap rock ridge of East Rock, with the Giant Steps trail, the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on top and views over the harbor to Long Island. It reaches into Hamden.35

  • Yale Bowl

    National Historic Landmark

    Built 1914 · Listed 1987 · 81 Central Avenue

    The first bowl-shaped stadium in the country, opened in 1914 with 70,896 seats, and the model for the Rose Bowl. A National Historic Landmark.36

  • New Haven County Courthouse

    Built 1917 · Listed 2003 · 121 Elm Street

    A white marble Beaux Arts courthouse on the Green with a grand central atrium, where Griswold v. Connecticut, the landmark birth control case, was tried.37

  • New Haven Railroad Station

    Built 1920 · Listed 1975 · 50 Union Avenue

    Union Station, Cass Gilbert's Beaux Arts station of 1920, built after the earlier station burned. Nearly torn down in the 1970s, it was restored and reopened in 1985.38

  • Dixwell Avenue Congregational United Church of Christ

    Built 1969 · Listed 2018 · 217 Dixwell Avenue

    A congregation founded in 1820 as the African Ecclesiastical Society, central to Black New Haven ever since. Its church is John M. Johansen's Brutalist building of 1969.39

    Visit their website

In their words

“The skilful precision with which New Haven was laid out around its central market-place elicited at that time universal admiration.”

The republic of New Haven, Charles H. Levermore, 188640

“The stranger within New Haven's gates is immediately impressed by the vista across the broad and beautiful Green”

Old paths and legends of the New England border, 19076

“lined on either side by the homes of wealth and learning of this collegiate city; and with its majestic elms forming a tree arched aisle of world-wide fame.”

Revolutionary characters of New Haven, 1911, on Hillhouse Avenue5

Nearby towns

Sources

  1. New Haven, Connecticut, Wikipedia
  2. An introduction to the history of Connecticut as a manufacturing state (1915), Internet Archive
  3. National Register of Historic Places listings in New Haven, Connecticut, Wikipedia
  4. Map of New Haven, Connecticut in 2026, KNOWOL (USGS elevation, Census Bureau roads)
  5. Revolutionary characters of New Haven (1911), on James Hillhouse and the elms, Internet Archive
  6. Old paths and legends of the New England border (1907), on the City of Elms, Internet Archive
  7. History and antiquities of New Haven, Conn., John Warner Barber (1870), on the Judges' Cave, Internet Archive
  8. History and antiquities of New Haven, Conn., John Warner Barber (1870), on Richard Sperry and the cave, Internet Archive
  9. The public records of the State of Connecticut (1894), on the Long Wharf lottery, Internet Archive
  10. The refugees of 1776 from Long Island to Connecticut (1913), on Tryon at New Haven, Internet Archive
  11. The Connecticut magazine (1899), on the steamboat United States, Internet Archive
  12. History of Connecticut in monographic form (1925), on the oyster trade, Internet Archive
  13. History of New Haven County, Connecticut (1892), on Fair Haven oysters, Internet Archive
  14. A historical account of Connecticut currency, continental money, and the finances of the revolution (1863), on the New Haven colony at Delaware Bay, Internet Archive
  15. The coming of Yale College to New Haven (1917), Internet Archive
  16. The public records of the State of Connecticut (1894), on Tomlinson's Bridge, Internet Archive
  17. History of Connecticut in monographic form (1925), on the first Catholic worship in New Haven, Internet Archive
  18. New Haven City Hall and County Courthouse, Wikipedia
  19. The trust company corner; a history from earliest times, 1638-1928 (1928), Internet Archive
  20. New Haven Green, Wikipedia
  21. Fort Nathan Hale, Wikipedia
  22. Morris House (New Haven, Connecticut), Wikipedia
  23. Connecticut Hall, Wikipedia
  24. Grove Street Cemetery, Wikipedia
  25. Wooster Square, Wikipedia
  26. Hillhouse Avenue, Wikipedia
  27. Five Mile Point Light, Wikipedia
  28. James Dwight Dana House, Wikipedia
  29. Quinnipiac River Historic District, Wikipedia
  30. Lafayette B. Mendel House, Wikipedia
  31. Winchester Repeating Arms Company Historic District, Wikipedia
  32. Marsh Hall, Wikipedia
  33. Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, Wikipedia
  34. Russell Henry Chittenden House, Wikipedia
  35. East Rock Park, Wikipedia
  36. Yale Bowl, Wikipedia
  37. New Haven County Courthouse, Wikipedia
  38. Union Station (New Haven), Wikipedia
  39. Dixwell Avenue Congregational United Church of Christ, Wikipedia
  40. The republic of New Haven: a history of municipal evolution (1886), Internet Archive