Centrally located in the Raritan Valley region, the township is an outer-ring suburb of New York City in the New York metropolitan area, even though it is slightly geographically closer to Center City, Philadelphia than to Midtown Manhattan.

[24] Robert Blundon is also a famous resident between 1989-97 who won the William Canady Black Man of the Year Award in 1989 and 1990.

The original residents of Plainsboro were the Unami people, a subtribe of the Lenape Native Americans.

The building still stands and was featured on HGTV's If These Walls Could Talk along with the historic Plainsboro Inn building (circa 1790) that was built adjacent to "Planes Tavern" at Plainsboro Road and Dey Road.

In 1897, the Walker-Gordon Dairy Farm opened up, which, among many other things, contributed Elsie the Cow and The Walker Gordon Diner, which has since been closed.

Plainsboro was officially founded on May 6, 1919, and was formed from sections of Cranbury and South Brunswick townships.

To accommodate the additional growth, West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North was opened in Plainsboro in September 2000, beginning a north–south rivalry between the Pirates and the Knights.

Located at the intersection of Schalks Crossing and Scudder Mills Roads, Plainsboro Village Center currently features eight buildings totaling almost 75,000 square feet (7,000 m2) of retail, commercial and office space, as well as 11 single-family homes and 12 townhomes.

The Village Center also houses a new $12.4 million Plainsboro Library, which opened on April 10, 2010.

[31] The township broke ground on July 27, for two new buildings that will host medical offices, additional retail space and eight residential condominium units.

The new hospital and 171-acre (69 ha) medical campus was designed to include a modern medical office building attached to the hospital, a world-class education center, a health and fitness center, a skilled nursing facility, a pediatric services facility and a 32-acre (13 ha) public park.

[33] Constructed at a cost of $523 million, the new hospital opened in May 2012, with patients relocated from the former facility in Princeton that had been in use for 93 years.

[34] The hospital was acquired in January 2018 by University of Pennsylvania Health System and renamed as Penn Medicine Princeton Medical Center.

[38][39] Other unincorporated communities, localities and place names located partially or completely within the township include Aqueduct, Schalks and Scotts Corner.

[8] The 2010 United States census counted 22,999 people, 9,402 households, and 5,886 families in the township.

This was the second-highest percentage (behind Edison) of Indian American people in any municipality in the United States with 1,000 or more residents identifying their ancestry.

It was designed by Sasaki Associates of Watertown, Massachusetts with the architectural firm Bower Lewis Thrower/Architects to "create a retail mix that will not just bring people in every few weeks like the regional malls do".

[54] MarketFair in Princeton and Quaker Bridge Mall in Lawrence Township are also a short distance away.

[55] The governing body is comprised of a five-member Township Committee whose members are chosen at-large on a partisan basis for three-year terms of office on a staggered basis, with either one or two seats up for vote each year as part of the November general election.

Township Committee meetings are open to the public and held on the second and fourth Wednesday of each month.

[65][66][67] For the 119th United States Congress, New Jersey's 12th congressional district is represented by Bonnie Watson Coleman (D, Ewing Township).

[72] As of 2025[update], Middlesex County's Commissioners (with party affiliation, term-end year, and residence listed in parentheses) are: Director Ronald G. Rios (D, Carteret, 2027),[73] Deputy Director Shanti Narra (D, North Brunswick, 2027),[74] Claribel A.

[106] Plainsboro Township and West Windsor Township are part of a combined school district, the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District, which serves students in pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade from the two communities.

[129][130] The campus of the former St. Joseph's Seminary, located in Plainsboro,[131] is home to a number of private schools.

NJ Transit and Amtrak trains service the township at the nearby Princeton Junction.

[144][145] Suburban Transit buses 300 line to New York from the Park and Ride in U.S. Route 130 provides service directly to Grand Central Terminal in Midtown Manhattan.

[147] Penn Medicine Princeton Medical Center (commonly abbreviated as "PMC") is a regional hospital and healthcare network located in Plainsboro Township.

Servicing the greater Princeton region (which includes parts of Middlesex, Mercer, Monmouth, and Somerset counties) in central New Jersey, the hospital is owned by the Penn Medicine Health System and is the only such hospital in the state of New Jersey.

[153][154] The PMC network offers a wide array of services at its main campus location in Plainsboro, along with its network of primary and specialty care through its Family-based Physician practice locations across Central Jersey (in locations such as in Cranbury, Dayton, East Windsor, Ewing, Hillsborough, Lawrenceville, Monroe, Morganville, Pennington, Robbinsville, and West Windsor).