The United States Office of Management and Budget has designated Fairfield County as the Bridgeport–Stamford–Norwalk metropolitan statistical area.

[5] Fairfield County's Gold Coast helped rank it sixth in the U.S. in per-capita personal income by the Bureau of Economic Analysis in 2005,[6] contributing substantially to Connecticut being one of the most affluent states in the U.S.[7] Other communities are more densely populated and economically diverse than the affluent areas for which the county is better known.

Other early county inhabitants include: During the Revolutionary War, Connecticut's prodigious agricultural output led to it being known informally as "the Provisions State".

Tryon and Henry Duncan led a fleet of 26 ships carrying 2,000 men to Westport's Compo Beach to raid Continental Army supply depots in Danbury on April 22, 1777.

American Major General David Wooster (1710–1777), who was born in Stratford, was in charge of the stores at Danbury and defended them with a force of only 700 troops.

Two years later during a British raid on Greenwich on February 26, 1779 General Israel Putnam, who had stayed at Knapp's Tavern the previous night, rode away on his horse to warn the people of Stamford.

The hat he was wearing with a musket ball hole in it is on display at Knapp's Tavern in Greenwich (which is commonly, albeit somewhat erroneously, called Putnam's cottage).

[13] In the summer of 1779, General William Tryon sought to punish Americans by attacking civilian targets in coastal Connecticut with a force of about 2,600 British troops.

Norwalk militia leader Captain Stephen Betts put up resistance to the invaders, but was overwhelmed by the powerful British raiders and was forced to retreat.

[26] Connecticut in 1905 was 11th in the United States terms of industrial goods produced, and Fairfield County contained the city with the most total worth of products made, Bridgeport.

The 2nd largest city in Connecticut behind New Haven by 1910, Bridgeport's population grew by 50,000 people during the first 20 months of US involvement during the First World War, producing 50% of Allied ammunition during that time.

The city began to decline in population as families moved into nearby suburbs, such as Fairfield, leading to widespread residential development.

Bridgeport slowly began to loose jobs and large corporations moved into southern states or outside the country.

[39] Towns such as Westport, Darien, New Caanan, Stamford, and Greenwich became New York City suburbs, forming the Connecticut Gold Coast,[40][41] Fairfield County, along with all other Connecticut counties, was abolished as a governmental agency in accord with state legislation that took effect October 1, 1960.

[42] The first enclosed shopping malls in Fairfield County were Trumbull Shopping Park (1963), in the bedroom community of Trumbull just outside Bridgeport, the now gone Lafayette Shopping Park (1965) in Bridgeport,[37] replaced downtown blocks that were demolished as part of the city's urban renewal, Danbury Fair Mall (1968) on the former fairgrounds of the annual Danbury Fair,[43] Hawley Lane Mallin Trumbull (1971) and the Stamford Town Center (1982) as part of the urban renewal project in downtown Stamford.

[45][43] Stamford's population grew from 92,713 in 1960 to 135,470 people in 2020, making it the 2nd largest city in Connecticut in 2022 (behind Bridgeport), surpassing New Haven.

The eastern limit is mostly a natural border defined as the halfway point of the Housatonic River with New Haven County with the exception of several islands belonging wholly to Stratford.

The county hosts or contains the rivers Byram, Housatonic, Mianus, Mill, Norwalk, Pequonnock, Rippowam, Saugatuck, and Still.

[49][50][better source needed] The Housatonic is residually polluted with Monsanto chemicals called Aroclor, polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs.

During the 1980s many buyouts and reorganizations and an economic recession lead to companies vacating much of the suburban office space in Fairfield County.

In 1992 Fairfield County had the headquarters of over 25 major multinational corporations, giving it the third largest concentration of those companies in the United States after New York City and Chicago.

[69] Fairfield County is home to a large concentration of hedge funds and private equity firms, with many located along the Gold Coast in places like Greenwich, Stamford, and Westport.

[75] Several Governmental agencies, as well as private security contractors, have made note of Fairfield's low crime rates and the county currently has 6 cities and towns with a percentile safety index of 90% or higher compared to the rest of the continental United States (based on violent and property crimes).

Urban municipalities such as Stamford, Norwalk and Bridgeport trended Democratic, while the suburban and rural enclaves tended to lean Republican.

New office buildings are being concentrated near railroad stations in Stamford, Bridgeport and other municipalities in the county to allow for more rail commuting.

Connecticut Transit's Stamford division runs local and inter-city buses to the southern part of the county.

Commuter Rail is perhaps Fairfield County's most important transportation artery, as it allows its residents an efficient ride to Grand Central Terminal in New York City.

[79] Bridgeport and Stamford are also served by Amtrak, and both cities see a significant number of boardings on the Northeast Regional route (Boston to Newport News, VA).

State officials say they hope the widening will not only benefit drivers regularly on the route but also entice some cars from the more crowded Interstate 95, which runs roughly parallel to it.

The limited access divided expressway ends in northern Trumbull, but Route 25 continues into Monroe, Newtown, and Brookfield.