Prepared Ground

States · New Jersey

New Jersey: every county, ranked.

The State Screen scores all 21 counties in New Jersey from 0 to 100 against each other on the four things a homestead can't do without: water, privacy, hazard exposure and access. Nothing is screened out.

Google Earth view of New Jersey with every county shaded from orange to dark green by its rank within the state.
New Jersey's State Screen in Google Earth. Darkest green is the top tier, orange the bottom.

Top five counties

  1. Hunterdon County
  2. Warren County
  3. Salem County
  4. Sussex County
  5. Burlington County

In order, without their scores. Every county's score, its four sub-scores and the raw numbers behind them are in the free map.

Get New Jersey free

Free for an email address: a Google Earth file with every county clickable.

What the map says about New Jersey

Rain is rarely the problem in New Jersey: the median county gets 49 inches a year, and the wettest 51.

Across New Jersey, the typical well is 139 ft deep. In 62% of its counties the median well is 150 ft or shallower; in 0% it is 400 ft or more.

The hazard that scores worst most often is hurricane, in 14 of 21 counties.

Every county in New Jersey sits inside a metro commuting ring, and the median one is 2 miles from a town of 5,000.

These are counties, not parcels. A good score says the region has the water, the quiet and the hazard profile; it says nothing about a particular piece of land's flood zone, access or water source.

Then make it yours

The State Screen is one opinion of what matters. The complete map is 35 layers you switch on and off to suit your own search — wildfire, water rights, radon, well depth, state gun and homeschool law, distance from the cities, military sites and more — across the US, Canada and Mexico.

See the layers Email to buy — $49

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