[2][3] North Haven has easy access to Interstate 91 and the Wilbur Cross Parkway (Route 15).

It is near Sleeping Giant State Park and less than 10 miles (16 km) from downtown New Haven and Yale University.

Ezra Stiles enumerated about forty families living in North Haven in the early part of the eighteenth century.

The first United States census counted 1,236 people in the agricultural community of North Haven in 1790.

In 1838, the New Haven and Hartford Railroad had laid its tracks along the level sand plains by the Quinnipiac River.

Stiles Co., brought immigrants to North Haven from Ireland, Germany, Italy, and Poland.

In the 1880s, Solomon Linsley, a North Haven architect, built the Memorial Town Hall and the new District 4 School.

Linsley designed and built 32 Victorian style houses and public buildings in North Haven.

The establishment of two factories, Pratt & Whitney and Marlin Firearms, spurred the subsequent population increase.

This population shift necessitated the building of a new police station, firehouse, library, and five schools in the 1950s and 1960s to accommodate the needs of the growing community.

The center of town is an area stretching along U.S. Route 5, from approximately its interchange with I-91 in the north to Bailey Road in the south.

[18][19] North Haven has a growing commercial, retailing and manufacturing base which employs approximately 12,640 people.

In 2013, Sustainable Building Systems, an international construction and tech firm, will consolidate its headquarters in North Haven, creating over 400 jobs.

In summer 2019, Amazon began operating an 855,000 square-foot fulfillment center in North Haven, providing over 1,500 jobs.

It is also the home to a branch of Gateway Community College and The University of Connecticut New Haven County Extension Center.

The main campus building was originally part of the North Haven public school system until its sale to the college.

The 2017 Hallmark Channel Christmas movie "Romance at Reindeer Lodge" was primarily filmed on location at a North Haven home.