Ridge has a population of 289, making it the 84th largest place in Dorset.
The other populations of Ridge
The same name covers more than one area, and each has its own figure.
| What you mean | Population | Source |
|---|---|---|
| The place itself The populated settlement, roughly the built-up core. |
289 | GeoNames |
| The built-up area Continuous development, where buildings sit less than 200m apart. Drawn from where the buildings are, not where the council boundary is. |
305 | ONS Census 2021 (2021) |
Why these differ: which population figure is right? · compare with another place
Year-by-year official estimates for the wider area: Dorset population trends, 2001–2024.
Ridge in context
Distances are straight-line from the settlement's recorded coordinates. The 10 km figure sums the recorded places within that radius, so it describes how built-up the surroundings are rather than people per square kilometre.
The centre of Ridge sits in postcode district BH20.
Food and drink on the high street
| Registered premises | Count |
|---|---|
| Restaurants and cafés (65.6 per 10,000 residents) | 2 |
| Pubs, bars and nightclubs (32.8 per 10,000 residents) | 1 |
Counts are registered food premises in the Ridge built-up area (305 residents at the 2021 census), from the FSA food hygiene register, extracted 17 August 2026. The boundary is drawn from where the buildings are, so these figures cover the town itself rather than the wider council area, and no total is shown because the register also lists premises nobody would call a venue: school kitchens, care homes, warehouses. Compare towns →
Shops and services
| Premises | Count |
|---|---|
| Cafés (32.8 per 10,000 residents) | 1 |
Shops, cafés, salons, banks, post offices and arcades are rateable premises by use on the VOA 2023 rating list — the shops figure is all general retail, charity shops included. Gambling premises come from the Gambling Commission's licensing register, which lists 6,251 betting shops nationally against the rating list's 3,838: many betting shops are rated as ordinary shops, so the licensing register is the truer count and the one used here. Categories the rating list counts badly are deliberately absent rather than wrong: petrol stations disappear into supermarket ratings, vets and museums run far under their professional registers, and pools and nurseries mostly rate inside other premises. Same built-up-area boundary as the download table on this page.
Broadband
| Availability | % of homes |
|---|---|
| Gigabit-capable (1,000 Mbit/s+) | 90.2% |
| Superfast (30 Mbit/s+) | 90.2% |
| Unable to get 10 Mbit/s download | 3 homes (2.1%) |
Share of the 143 residential premises in this built-up area that the fixed network can serve at each speed, from Ofcom's Connected Nations coverage data (network state July 2025). Availability is what the line to a home can deliver if ordered, not what households actually subscribe to, and a full-fibre street where everyone bought the cheapest package shows 100% here. Percentile compares towns of 10,000+ residents. Compare towns →
Go deeper
Nearby in Dorset
| # | Place | Population |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Whitchurch Canonicorum | 312 |
| 2 | Studland | 299 |
| 3 | Cheselbourne | 296 |
| 4 | Loders | 276 |
| 5 | Worth Matravers | 275 |
| 6 | East Lulworth | 241 |