The township, and all of Burlington County, is a part of the Philadelphia-Reading-Camden combined statistical area and the Delaware Valley.

Abraham Levitt and Sons purchased and developed Willingboro land in the 1950s and 1960s as a planned community in their Levittown model.

The town was to be Levitt & Sons' third and largest Levittown development, following similar projects in New York and Pennsylvania.

Levitt acquired the great majority of the land in Willingboro; the historic community of Rancocas, in the southeast portion of the township, was annexed to Westampton Township to keep it from being bulldozed, as Levitt wished to keep the development within the boundaries of a single municipality.

When homes for the new Levittown were first being sold in 1958, Levitt and Sons had a policy against sales to African Americans.

[30] W. R. James, an African-American officer in the Army's Criminal Investigation Division, was stationed at nearby Fort Dix and applied to purchase a Levittown home.

On June 29, 1958, an agent of Levitt and Sons told him that the new Levittown development would be an all-white community.

At the time, de facto racial segregation in housing existed in many areas in the United States.

Given James' success in his suit, Charles and Vera Williams purchased a house and moved into the community in 1960, the first African-American family in Willingboro.

The company set up an integration committee headed by Howard Lett, an African American.

[29] Lett created a five-point program, which included the announcement by community leaders of Levitt's plan to desegregate housing, and a thorough briefing program for Levitt employees, government officials, the police and the press.

[32] During the early 1970s, several homeowners said they were approached by local real estate agents and told that their neighborhood was becoming increasingly African-American and home values could decline if they did not sell quickly; a practice known as blockbusting.

[33] The township in 1974 enacted an ordinance that prohibited the posting of "for sale" or "sold" signs on real estate.

The Supreme Court in the 1977 case of Linmark Associates, Inc. v. Willingboro ruled that the ordinance violated the First Amendment protections for free speech, which applied to commercial needs.

Unincorporated communities, localities and place names located partially or completely within the township include Bortons Landing, Charleston and Cooperstown.

Residents' families would receive free swim tags after showing applicable IDs at each section's school or the community office.

[62] The current Council-Manager form of government was adopted by referendum in November 1960 based on the recommendations of a Charter Study Commission.

[3][65][66][67] In July 2017, the council selected Rebecca Perone from a list of three candidates nominated by the Democratic municipal committee to fill the seat that had been held by Christopher "Chris" Walker expiring in December 2019 until he resigned from his post as mayor in June 2017.

[68][69] The township council appointed Chris Walker in October 2013 to fill the vacant seat of Ken Gordon, after a New Jersey Superior Court judge ruled that Gordon's seat was vacant based on his having missed a series of council meetings.

[70] Darvis Holley was appointed in April 2014 to fill the vacant seat of Jim Ayrer, who had resigned after serving on the council for 34 years.

[73][74][75] For the 119th United States Congress, New Jersey's 3rd congressional district is currently represented Herb Conaway (D, Delran Township).

[77] For the 2024-2025 session, the 7th legislative district of the New Jersey Legislature is represented in the State Senate by Troy Singleton (D, Palmyra) and in the General Assembly by Carol A. Murphy (D, Mount Laurel).

[78] Burlington County is governed by a Board of County Commissioners composed of five members who are chosen at-large in partisan elections to serve three-year terms of office on a staggered basis, with either one or two seats coming up for election each year; at an annual reorganization meeting, the board selects a director and deputy director from among its members to serve a one-year term.

[101] Among the township's 2010 Census population, 65.5% (vs. 61.7% in Burlington County) were registered to vote, including 85.7% of those ages 18 and over (vs. 80.3% countywide).

[106] In the 2013 gubernatorial election, Democrat Barbara Buono received 6,513 ballots cast (70.6% vs. 35.8% countywide), ahead of Republican Chris Christie with 2,453 votes (26.6% vs. 61.4%) and other candidates with 40 votes (0.4% vs. 1.2%), among the 9,227 ballots cast by the township's 21,474 registered voters, yielding a 43.0% turnout (vs. 44.5% in the county).

[109] Willingboro Township Public Schools serves students in pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade.

[111] Schools in the district (with 2020–21 enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics[112]) are Garfield East Early Childhood Development Center[113] with 214 students in grades Pre-K–K, J. Cresswell Stuart Early Childhood Development Center[114] with 305 students in grades Pre-K–K, Hawthorne Elementary School[115] with 352 students in grades 1–4, W.R. James Sr.

[124] Students from Willingboro Township, and from all of Burlington County, are eligible to attend the Burlington County Institute of Technology, a countywide public school district that serves the vocational and technical education needs of students at the high school and post-secondary level at its campuses in Medford and Westampton Township.

[132] Academy Bus provides service from Willingboro and at the park-and-ride facility near Exit 5 of the New Jersey Turnpike in Westampton to the Port Authority Bus Terminal and other street service in Midtown Manhattan and to both Jersey City and the Wall Street area in Lower Manhattan.

[133][134] People who were born in, residents of, or otherwise closely associated with Willingboro Township include: