Cold Spring Harbor, New York
hamlet in Suffolk County, New York, United States
Cold Spring Harbor is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Town of Huntington, in Suffolk County, on the North Shore of Long Island in New York. As of the 2020 census, Cold Spring Harbor had a population of 3,064.
History
Cold Spring Harbor was named after the naturally cold freshwater springs that flow in the area. Its economy mainly tied to milling and port activities, it rose in prominence as a whaling community in the mid-nineteenth century. After the decline of whaling in the 1860s, it became a resort town with several hotels. In the 20th century it became known as the site of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, although the laboratory itself is located in the adjacent village of Laurel Hollow in Nassau County, which was called Cold Spring before incorporation.
Today it is primarily a bedroom community of New York City, with a small central business area running along Route 25A, and is home to many educational and cultural organizations: the Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Museum, the Cold Spring Harbor Fish Hatchery and Aquarium (also in Laurel Hollow), Dolan DNA Learning Center, the Uplands Farm Sanctuary (home of The Nature Conservancy's Long Island chapter), and a museum exhibition gallery run by Preservation Long Island.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 3.9 square miles (10 km2), of which 3.7 square miles (9.6 km2) is land and 0.2 square miles (0.52 km2), or 4.86%, is water.
Demographics
2020 census
As of the 2020 census, Cold Spring Harbor had a population of 3,064. This represented a decrease from 4,975 in 2000.
“Cold Spring Harbor, New York” enters the record as hamlet in Suffolk County, New York, United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Cold, Spring and Harbor can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q953080. VIAF identifies the subject as 128461306. The Library of Congress control number is n50054305. Authority coordinates are 40.863, -73.443. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020 and 2000.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cold Spring Harbor, New York” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.