Barrington is a somewhat small coastal town (ie. on the ocean or tidally-influenced rivers) located in the state of Rhode Island. With a population of 16,819 people and four constituent neighborhoods, Barrington is the 22nd largest community in Rhode Island.

Barrington is a decidedly white-collar town, with fully 88.91% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Barrington is a town of professionals, sales and office workers, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Barrington who work in management occupations (17.05%), sales jobs (11.49%), and office and administrative support jobs (10.56%).

Of important note, Barrington is also a town of artists. Barrington has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Barrington's character.

Also of interest is that Barrington has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.

In addition, Barrington is home to many people who could be described as "urban sophisticates," which are people who are not only wealthy and employed in professional occupations, but highly educated to boot. Urban sophisticates have urbane tastes - whether they reside in a big or small city, a suburb, or a little town. Urban sophisticates support bookstores, quality clothing stores, enjoy luxury travel, and in big cities, they are truly the patrons of the arts, attending and supporting institutions such as opera, symphony, ballet, and theatre.

Because of many things, Barrington is a very good place for families to consider. With an enviable combination of good schools, low crime, college-educated neighbors who tend to support education because of their own experiences, and a high rate of home ownership in predominantly single-family properties, Barrington really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Barrington perfect? Of course not, and if you like frenetic night life, it will be far from your cup of tea. But overall this is a solid community, with many things to recommend it as a family-friendly place to live.

One of the nice things about Barrington is that is it nautical, meaning that parts of the town are somewhat historic and on the ocean, or touch tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and tidal rivers. Because of this, visitors and locals will often go to these areas to take in the scenery or to enjoy waterfront activities.

Being a small town, Barrington does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.

Barrington Information and Demographics

Do you like to read, write and learn? If you move to Barrington, you'll likely find that many of your neighbors like to as well. Barrington is one of the more educated communities in America, with a full 53.21% of its adults having a college degree or even advanced degree, compared to a national average across all communities of 14.96%.

The per capita income in Barrington in 2000 was $35,881, which is wealthy relative to Rhode Island and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $143,524 for a family of four. However, Barrington contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

The people who call Barrington home come from a variety of different races and ancestries. The most prevalent race in Barrington is White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Barrington include Irish, Italian, English, Portuguese, German, French, French Canadian, and Polish.

The most common language spoken in Barrington is English.