The population was 61,548 at the 2011 census increasing from 59,550 in 2001,[1] including the surrounding suburbs of Sandy Bay, Mineral Heights, Hazard, Palmers Cross, Denbigh, Race Track, and Four Paths among others.

It became part of an estate named after its owner, slave trader Reverend William May, who was born in England in 1695 but in his later years resided in Jamaica.

[citation needed] May Pen is well located from an administrative point of view in the centre of a largely agricultural parish, and as a midpoint on the Kingston to Manchester road.

The clock tower in the town centre was erected in 1908 after the death of a doctor Robert Glaister Samuel Bell who drowned while attempting to cross the Rio Minho river in 1904.

During its heyday of Jamaican bauxite mining, citrus and sugar production, Clarendon was among Jamaica's leading parishes in terms of economic activity.