Bath: City or Town?

A big milestone in the story of Bath came in 1847, when our community went from being a town, to being a city. This was an official designation granted by the state of Maine - not just a state of mind! Today, larger communities nearby, like Brunswick, are mere towns, despite having more than twice the population of Bath. Why? Just look to Bath’s history. Though “small-ish” today, we were quite big back in the day.

Our city (a-hem) government website offers a little more insight.

Wikipedia has a nice little list of Maine’s city’s versus towns. And here’s an article that explains even being a town is too much for some small communities in Maine. So these designations, city, town, etc (the state uses the generic term “municipalities”) are fluid even today.

Though some might think us small (we rank 14th in population out of 23 cities in Maine, and we are the 3rd smallest city by square mileage according to this chart from Wikipedia), Bath will keep it’s city status, thank you very much. We do, after all, have the best City Hall (pictured).