Piscataqua River Watershed

The Piscataqua River forms Newington’s eastern border with Maine. The Newington shoreline is heavily developed, with numerous industrial facilities in the Pease International Trade Port.

Peverly Brook flows out of a small forested area west of the landing strip at the former Pease Air Force Base. The brook is tidally influenced and its water is brackish. Peverly Brook flows through the Great Bay National Wildlife Refuge and flows into Great Bay.

Great Bay is a tidally influenced inlet that forms Newington’s western border. The water in the bay is brackish. Its shoreline is comprised of forest in the National Wildlife Refuge, and dozens of homes along Little Bay Road.

To see the locations of these resources in Google Earth follow this link.

If you do not have Google Earth software you may download it by following this link.

Situated in New Hampshire's Seacoast Region, sixty miles northeast of Boston, Newington is bordered on three sides by the Piscataqua River and the Great Bay Estuary. Newington's relatively small land area of 8.5 square miles includes the 4-square miles of the former Pease Air Force Base that now includes commercial and light industry, educational facilities and the airport itself. Outside of Pease there are the largest deep water port in the state, over 3 million barrels of bulk storage facilities for oil, gasoline, liquefied petroleum gas, asphalt, and other materials.

With its strategic proximity to limited access highways, Newington's commercial district is New Hampshire's third largest retail market. Newington's daytime population of shoppers and workers typically exceeds 30,000 and the town's overnight residential population is 900.

Newington's residential district features many historic homes, open fields, and sweeping vistas of Little Bay and Great Bay. Despite the town's small land area, Newington has more publicly owned conservation land than any other municipality in southeast New Hampshire. Protected tracts include the 120 acre Fox Point on Little Bay, and the 1,100-acre Great Bay National Wildlife Refuge which stretches 6 miles along the Great Bay Estuary.

Newington’s population actually decreased during the 1990’s, due mostly to the closing of the Pease Airforce Base. While the population is slowly growing now, the biggest pressures of development will likely come from increased commercial development.