603 Area Code 🌍☎️

Manchester is New Hampshire's largest city, located on the Merrimack River with a population of 115,644 as of the 2020 census, making it the tenth-most populous in New England and part of the Manchester-Nashua metropolitan area of approximately 423,000 residents. Named in 1810 by merchant and inventor Samuel Blodget after Manchester, England, the city became a major Industrial Revolution hub centered around the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, which operated the world's largest cotton textile mill - Mill No. 11, stretching 900 feet long with 4,000 looms and producing 50 miles of cloth per hour by 1912. The mill complex, founded in 1838 as a planned company town, attracted massive immigration, particularly from French Canada, and produced diverse goods including shoes, cigars, locomotives, and rifles through its foundry division. After World War II, Manchester transitioned from textile manufacturing to new industries and companies like DEKA as traditional mill jobs departed the city. Today, Manchester serves as one of two county seats of Hillsborough County alongside Nashua and remains a major economic and cultural center in northern New England. Nashua is the second-largest city in northern New England with a 2020 census population of 91,322, located in southern New Hampshire as one of two county seats of Hillsborough County. Originally settled around 1654 as the fur-trading town of Dunstable at the confluence of the Nashua and Merrimack rivers, the city was renamed Nashua in 1836 after the river and incorporated as a city in 1853, with its name derived from the Nashaway people's word meaning "beautiful stream with a pebbly bottom." The city's economy was built on textile manufacturing from the 1820s onward, with the Nashua Manufacturing Company and Jackson Manufacturing Company operating multiple mills until decline following World War I, particularly after the 1922 New England Textile Strike. Since the 1980s, Nashua's economy has diversified into financial services, high tech, and defense industries, with major employers including Nashua Corporation, BAE Systems, and Teradyne, plus two regional medical centers. Known as a "Gate City" for its role as a gateway between Boston and New Hampshire, Nashua hosts the South Nashua commercial district anchored by Pheasant Lane Mall, leveraging New Hampshire's lack of sales tax as a major regional shopping destination. Concord is the capital city of New Hampshire and the county seat of Merrimack County, with a 2020 population of 43,976, making it the state's third-largest city. First settled by Europeans in 1659 as Penacook, the town was incorporated as Rumford in 1734 and renamed Concord in 1765 by Governor Benning Wentworth to symbolize harmony following a boundary dispute with the town of Bow. Concord became the official state capital in 1808, and its State House, completed in 1819, remains the oldest U.S. state capitol with a legislature meeting in its original chambers. The city's economy is anchored by the State of New Hampshire as the top employer and Concord Hospital as the largest private employer, while also hosting the University of New Hampshire School of Law, St. Paul's School, and the New Hampshire Police and Fire Academies. Located on the Merrimack River and served by Interstates 89 and 93, Concord is home to the final resting place of President Franklin Pierce and lies 23 miles south of Manchester-Boston Regional Airport.