Boothbay Harbor, ME

Boothbay Harbor CDP is the denser center of the town of Boothbay Harbor in Lincoln County, wrapped around the harbor and Mill Cove. The 2020 census counted 872 residents in the CDP, a smaller number than the population reported for the whole town. Its streets run down to working waterfronts, shops, restaurants, marinas, and the ferries and boats that make the harbor the center of local commerce. The town’s year-round population shares the peninsula with a large seasonal economy, so the calendar changes the pace of the place as much as the tides do.

Boothbay Harbor’s downtown is the practical meeting point for the wider Boothbay region, with town services, galleries, seafood businesses, lodging, and marine trades packed into the waterfront streets. The surrounding town reaches out through Sprucewold, Bayville, West Boothbay Harbor, and other neighborhoods, but the CDP is the part most visitors picture when they say Boothbay Harbor. In winter, the harbor town runs on the people who stay, work, and keep businesses open; in summer, boats and visitors swell the streets. The result is a place with a tourist-facing front and a working Maine town underneath it.