Anderson Township is a township located southeastern Hamilton County along the Ohio and Little Miami Rivers, approximately 13 miles southeast of downtown Cincinnati. The population was 44,088 at the 2020 census.
History
Anderson Township's earliest settlement came in 1788, when pioneer Benjamin Stites settled near the mouth of the Little Miami River. The treaty of Easton forbade entering Ohio. but because England had been run out in the Revolutionary War, the local natives did not know treaty was void. The township was organized in 1793 as part of the Virginia Military District and was bounded by the Ohio and Little Miami Rivers, and the mouth of the Eight Mile Creek to the east. The township was important during its early days as the site of Flinn's Ford, the southernmost crossing of the Little Miami River. Anderson Township remained mainly undeveloped forest and agricultural land until post-World War II suburbanization brought new infrastructure to the community. The population grew by an average of 1,000 persons per year from the 1950s through the early 1990s bringing massive residential and commercial developments to the area. Anderson Township is named for Richard Clough Anderson Sr., Virginia's chief surveyor when the township was created.
Anderson Township became a qualified Tree City USA as recognized by the National Arbor Day Foundation in 2009.
Geography
Located in the southeastern corner of the county, the township is bounded by the Ohio River to the south and the Little Miami River to the north and east. The western border does not follow any land or water feature but is instead defined by a straight line extending due south from the confluence of the Little Miami River's East Fork and main channels. Land to the east of this border belongs to Clermont County. Municipal divisions that share a border with Anderson Township include all of the following: Linwood, Mt. Washington, East End, and California (all constituent neighborhoods of Cincinnati) to the west. Mariemont to the northwest. Plainville (officially part of Columbia Township) to the north. Terrace Park to the northeast Summerside, Mt. Carmel, and Tobasco (all, officially, of Union Township, Clermont County) to the east. Locust Grove (officially, Pierce Township, Clermont County) to the southeast. Campbell County, Kentucky to the south and southwest.
Other municipalities and subdivisions of note that neighbor the township not directly, but by proximity of one-eighth of a mile or less, include Mt. Lookout, Hyde Park, Fairfax, and Milford.
Also of note is the fact that Anderson's nearest neighbors to the west, Mt. Washington and California, are functionally exclaves of the City of Cincinnati, as they are impossible to reach via land or water without crossing into territory administered by Anderson Township (which controls the Little Miami River as it exists within Hamilton County).
Where California occupies the side of the Little Miami opposite the city at its delta, Mt. Washington (just barely) achieves its connection to California via a narrow terrestrial tract of land that spans approximately . It features no public or private road and is made up of at least ten private land parcels, all accessed via Anderson. Exactly whose historical interests were served by this arrangement is the subject of irregular dispute, but the lack of precedent for these irregular borders has attracted local criticism in the near and distant past alike.
Anderson Township includes the following census-designated places: Cherry Grove Coldstream Dry Run Forestville Fruit Hill Salem Heights Sherwood Turpin Hills
The township is composed of of rolling hills with steep, wooded hillsides leading down to the Little Miami and Ohio rivers. As of 1990, 36% of Anderson Township had been developed into suburban communities for Cincinnati, 13% into farmland, and the remainder being left as woodland.
Demographics
2020 census
As of the census of 2020, there were 44,088 people living in the township, for a population density of 1,455.04 people per square mile (560.91/km2). There were 16,962 housing units. The racial makeup of the township was 90.0% White, 1.6% Black or African American, 0.1% Native American, 2.2% Asian, 0.0% Pacific Islander, 0.8% from some other race, and 5.3% from two or more races. 2.6% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.