Salem County is located in the southwest corner of New Jersey. Bounded by the Delaware River and Bay to the west, the Maurice River (pronounced Morris) to the east, Oldmans Creek to the north and Stow Creek to the south. Salem County boasts a plethora of natural features including six rivers, more than 34,000 acres of meadow and marshland, tidal and freshwater wetlands, 40 lakes and ponds, a critical underground aquifer, streams, dunes, expansive woodlands, and bay beaches. Covering 338 square miles, nearly half of which is actively farmed, it also boasts a population of less than 65,000, the lowest population and the lowest density per square mile in New Jersey.
Known as "The Garden Spot of the Garden State", 42.6 percent of the land is under active farm cultivation. Farming and agriculture is the economic mainstay of most of Salem County and has been since colonial times, with shore tourism and industrialization along the Delaware River as chief exceptions. This rural society is distinctive within a state that is otherwise heavily industrialized and densely populated. Salem County is a historical entity with distinctive social, economic and cultural development with roots going back to the early 1600s.
From a wilderness, Salem County was transformed into an idyllic, peaceful English style countryside. Fenwick’s town of Salem sat on the banks of the Salem River, a tributary of the Delaware River, amid orchards of apple, cherry, and peach trees. Gardens of vegetables and flowers adorned the brick houses of country estates.
Salem was a market town, with several yearly fairs and a dock along the river, where shipping became a large enterprise in Colonial times.
In the early 1900's, a very popular tourism business developed along the banks of the Delaware with summer cottages, parks and a resort town, Penns Grove, where celebrities and wealthy families from Philadelphia would vacation. Today Salem County is refocusing on developing the tourism industry once again and has made much progress in this area with the Penns Grove River Walk project and the Salem City Main Street Program with both sharing the mission to stimulate and promote business development, tourism and historic preservation.
Click here to download Salem County's Economic Resource Guide.