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Lakeville Is Connecticut's Most Remote Town. Even That's Just 18 Miles to Winsted.

By SimpleMapLab·Published 13 May 2026·Rank #47 of 50 states·↑ All 50 states

Lakeville, CT — population 1,918, Northwest Hills County — is the most isolated inhabited place in Connecticut. The nearest city of 10,000+ residents is Winsted, CT, sitting 18 straight-line miles away. Connecticut has 143 towns under 10,000 residents; Lakeville is the most isolated among them.

Map: Lakeville, CT (Connecticut's loneliest inhabited place) and its 5 nearest cities of 10,000+ residents. The brick-red ring shows the empty zone in which no qualifying city exists; the nearest, Winsted, sits on its edge 18 miles away.The brick-red dot marks Lakeville, the most isolated inhabited place in Connecticut. Up to 5 green dots mark the nearest qualifying cities (population 10,000+), each labelled with name and straight-line distance. The brick-red dashed circle traces the empty zone — radius equal to the distance to the very nearest qualifying city. Torrington, CT18 MIRed Hook, NY19 MINew Milford, CT24 MIHudson, NY25 MIWinsted, CTLakevilleCONNECTICUT 18 MIsimplemaplab.com / studies / most-remote-places
Lakeville (red dot) and the nearest 10,000+ city, Winsted, CT (green dot), separated by 18 straight-line miles.
18 mi
straight-line distance from Lakeville to Winsted, CT
1,918
year-round residents of Lakeville (Census 2020)
6 mi
average distance to nearest anchor across Connecticut's 143 small towns
#47
of 50 states ranked by their loneliest town's isolation
Open a radius around Lakeville → /tools/map-radius-tool · Lakeville, CT · 50 mi
The link opens the SimpleMapLab Map Radius Tool with a 50-mile circle drawn around Lakeville. Try expanding the radius to see how far you have to look before encountering any 10,000+ city — the answer is roughly 18 miles in the direction of Winsted.

Why this happened

In a state as dense as Connecticut, "loneliest town" is a relative title. Lakeville holds it at just 18 miles from Winsted — a comfortable half-hour drive in most of the country, but the longest drive between any Connecticut town and a qualifying city. Lakeville's 1,918 residents are the closest thing the state has to small-town America.

Connecticut's 5 most isolated towns

The top 5 most-isolated inhabited places in Connecticut, sorted by distance to the nearest 10,000+ city.

#TownPop.Distance to nearest 10K+Nearest city
1Lakeville1,91818 miWinsted, CT
2Salisbury2,03418 miWinsted, CT
3Sharon2,60116 miTorrington, CT
4Canaan2,58713 miWinsted, CT
5Cornwall Bridge1,65612 miNew Milford, CT

How Connecticut compares

The states ranked closest to Connecticut on this metric. Click any for the dedicated breakdown.

#46 Massachusetts
Provincetown · 23 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#48 Rhode Island
Block Island · 17 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#45 Maryland
Tylerton · 24 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#49 New Jersey
Fortescue · 12 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#50 Delaware
Bethany Beach · 9 mi to the nearest 10K+ city

Draw your own radius

Open a 50-mile circle around Lakeville →

Try the 100-mile radius to see whether a major city falls inside — for Lakeville, it doesn't, because the nearest qualifying city (Winsted, CT) sits 18 miles away.

Methodology (brief)

We aggregate the US Census ZCTA dataset by postal city, treating any (postal city, state) pair with ≥ 50 residents as a town. Anchor cities are places with ≥ 10,000 residents. For every Connecticut town below the anchor threshold, we compute the straight-line distance to every anchor city in the US (cross-state distances count). The town with the largest minimum distance is Connecticut's loneliest. Full methodology on the hub page.

Suggested citation: SimpleMapLab (2026). The Loneliest Towns in America: Connecticut. Part of the Most Remote Inhabited Places study. Retrieved from https://www.simplemaplab.com/studies/most-remote-places/connecticut. CC-BY 4.0.