Durham (/ˈdɜːrəm/ DURR-əm) is a town in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States.

Durham is a former farming village on the Coginchaug River in central Connecticut.

The town is part of the Lower Connecticut River Valley Planning Region.

The Durham town center is listed by the U.S. Census Bureau as a census-designated place.

The west side of Durham is flanked by the Metacomet Ridge, a mountainous trap rock ridgeline that stretches from Long Island Sound to nearly the Vermont border.

It was founded in 1733, two years after Benjamin Franklin started the Philadelphia library.

In the 1830s Durham came to prominence as the birthplace of Richard P. Robinson, who was tried for and acquitted of the infamous murder of Helen Jewett.

14.5% of all households were made up of individuals, and 5.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.

As of the census[7] of 2000, there were 2,773 people, 1,040 households, and 809 families living in the Durham census-designated place, corresponding to the town center.

In the 2018 election, Republican Bob Stefanowski beat Democrat Ned Lamont 57%–37%.

Both companies disposed of organic solvents, paint wastes, and degreasers in open lagoons and buried drums.

The waste leached into the town's water supply, contaminating several private wells with methylene chloride, 1,4-dioxane, and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection are coordinating cleanup and monitoring efforts, including the delivery of free bottled water to affected residents.