We used Saturday Night Science to analyze Delaware’s most recent Census data to determine the divorce rate for each city in Delaware based on the percentage of currently divorced residents.
The city with the highest divorce rate in Delaware is Bellefonte, with 11.0% of people over 15 years of age being divorced, per the most recent census data. The city with the lowest divorce rate in Delaware is Ocean View.
Delaware is 4.0% divorced overall. There are some 32,678 people living in Delaware over fifteen years of age who are divorced. You can compare that to the 28,339,199 Americans who are currently divorced.
Isn’t the divorce rate in America close to 50%? Yes indeed. But we’re measuring something else; we are looking at counts and percentages of people over 15 years old who are currently divorced. That 50% statistic is for the percentage of people who have ever been divorced.
So now that we have you biting your nails, rethinking your worldview, and pulling out your hair, let’s look at the places in Delaware with the highest rates of divorcees.
11.0% divorced · #1 highest divorce rate in Delaware
9.0% divorced · #2 highest divorce rate in Delaware
9.0% divorced · #2 highest divorce rate in Delaware
8.0% divorced · #4 highest divorce rate in Delaware
Located in
Sussex County, Delaware
Milford is a city in Kent and Sussex counties in the U.S. state of Delaware. According to the 2010 census, the population of the city is 9,559.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
7.0% divorced · #5 highest divorce rate in Delaware
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
6.0% divorced · #7 highest divorce rate in Delaware
Located in
New Castle County, Delaware
Wilmington is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Delaware. The city was built on the site of Fort Christina, the first Swedish settlement in North America. It is at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine River, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley metropolitan area. Wilmington was named by Proprietor Thomas Penn after his friend Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington, who was prime minister in the reign of George II of Great Britain.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
6.0% divorced · #7 highest divorce rate in Delaware
6.0% divorced · #7 highest divorce rate in Delaware
New Castle is a city in New Castle County, Delaware, six miles south of Wilmington, situated on the Delaware River. In 1900, 3,380 people lived here; in 1910, 3,351. According to the 2010 Census, the population of the city is 5,285.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
5.0% divorced · #10 highest divorce rate in Delaware
Located in
New Castle County, Delaware
Smyrna is a town in Kent and New Castle counties in the U.S. state of Delaware. It is part of the Dover, Delaware Metropolitan Statistical Area. According to the Census Bureau, as of 2010, the population of the town is 10,023.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
5.0% divorced · #10 highest divorce rate in Delaware
Located in
Kent County, Delaware
Dover is the capital and second-largest city in the U.S. state of Delaware. It is also the county seat of Kent County, and the principal city of the Dover, DE Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Kent County and is part of the Philadelphia-Wilmington-Camden, PA-NJ-DE-MD Combined Statistical Area. It is located on the St. Jones River in the Delaware River coastal plain. It was named by William Penn of Dover in Kent, England. As of 2010, the city had a population of 36,047.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is Delaware’s statewide median.
Delaware statewide median: $84,954
On the map
Where Delaware’s highest divorce rates are
Saturday Night Science
How We Determined The Places In Delaware That Get Un-Hitched The Most
We used Saturday Night Science to look at the U.S. Census Bureau on divorce rates. Because who likes tracking misery more than the U.S. government?
Specifically, we looked at the 2020-2024 American Community Survey table S1201 — Marital Status. Pretty straightforward on that front — we just had to extract the following column of data:
Today, the analysis focuses on the 34 places in Delaware with a population of over 1,000.
- Population 15 Years and Over -> Divorced
We ranked each place by the percentage of divorcees over 15 years of age from highest to lowest. We crowned the divorce capital of Delaware the place with the highest incidence of divorcees, Bellefonte.
And if you’re trying to avoid divorce, check out Ocean View, the city with the lowest divorce rate in Delaware. We updated this article for 2026 and this list is our eleventh time ranking the cities in Delaware with the highest divorce rates.
The full plate
Cities With The Highest Divorce Rates In Delaware
Click any column to sort. Search by city name.
| Rank | City | Population | Divorcees | Divorce Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bellefonte | 1,388 | 122 | 11.0% |
| 2 | Greenwood | 1,564 | 113 | 9.0% |
| 2 | Frederica | 1,062 | 76 | 9.0% |
| 4 | Milford | 12,803 | 819 | 8.0% |
| 5 | Harrington | 3,838 | 215 | 7.0% |
| 7 | Wilmington | 71,727 | 3,443 | 6.0% |
| 7 | Blades | 1,071 | 51 | 6.0% |
| 7 | New Castle | 5,579 | 268 | 6.0% |
| 10 | Smyrna | 13,165 | 527 | 5.0% |
| 10 | Dover | 39,837 | 1,593 | 5.0% |
| 10 | Laurel | 4,152 | 166 | 5.0% |
| 10 | Delaware City | 1,950 | 78 | 5.0% |
| 14 | Clayton | 4,222 | 135 | 4.0% |
| 14 | Middl | 24,661 | 789 | 4.0% |
| 14 | Elsmere | 6,203 | 198 | 4.0% |
| 20 | Townsend | 2,832 | 68 | 3.0% |
| 20 | Milton | 3,567 | 86 | 3.0% |
| 20 | Seaford | 8,485 | 204 | 3.0% |
| 20 | Delmar | 2,412 | 58 | 3.0% |
| 20 | Bridgeville | 2,745 | 66 | 3.0% |
| 20 | Cheswold | 2,143 | 51 | 3.0% |
| 20 | Wyoming | 2,000 | 48 | 3.0% |
| 20 | Millsboro | 7,424 | 178 | 3.0% |
| 20 | Georg | 7,660 | 184 | 3.0% |
| 26 | Camden | 4,106 | 66 | 2.0% |
| 26 | Felton | 1,294 | 21 | 2.0% |
| 26 | Lewes | 3,505 | 56 | 2.0% |
| 26 | Selbyville | 3,097 | 50 | 2.0% |
| 31 | Frankford | 1,215 | 10 | 1.0% |
| 31 | Rehoboth Beach | 1,370 | 11 | 1.0% |
| 31 | Dagsboro | 1,376 | 11 | 1.0% |
| 31 | Newark | 30,330 | 243 | 1.0% |
| 31 | Millville | 2,430 | 19 | 1.0% |
| 34 | Ocean View | 2,851 | 0 | 0.0% |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024. 34 cities with more than 1,000 residents.
Summary
Getting Some Closure In Delaware After Untying The Knot
We now have a sense of what places in the First State don’t pay much attention to the whole “’til death do we part” phrase.
The cities with the highest divorce rate in Delaware are Bellefonte, Greenwood, Frederica, Milford, Harrington, Wilmington, Blades, New Castle, Smyrna, and Dover.
Try to keep in mind that the reason cities rank where they do in Delaware could be because of the age, education, and income distribution, as all of those things impact the rate of divorce.
