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Claremont is the only city in Sullivan County, New Hampshire, United States.

The Upper Connecticut River Valley was home to the Pennacook and Western Abenaki (Sokoki) peoples, later merging with members of other Algonquin tribes displaced by the wars and famines that accompanied the European settling of the region. The Hunter Archeological Site, located near the bridge connecting Claremont with Ascutney, Vermont, is a significant prehistoric Native American site that includes seven levels of occupational evidence, including evidence of at least three longhouses. The oldest dates recorded from evidence gathered during excavations in 1967 were to 1300 CE.

The city was named after Claremont, the country mansion of Thomas Pelham Holles, Earl of Clare. On October 26, 1764, Spafford was deeded land from Col. Samuel Ashley, who was given a charter to establish a ferry across the Connecticut River in 1784, the location of which is still known as Ashley's Ferry landing. Spafford was also the first man to marry in Claremont, and his son, Elijah, was the first white child to be born in the town. The Union Episcopal Church in West Claremont was built in 1773, and is the oldest surviving Episcopal church building in New Hampshire and the state's oldest surviving building built exclusively for religious purposes. The parish was organized in 1771 and chartered by the New Hampshire legislature in 1794 as Union Church Parish. Located across the street, Old St. Mary's Church, built in 1823 mostly in the Federal style, was the first Roman Catholic church in New Hampshire. It was discontinued in 1870 in favor of the new St. Mary's Church in the Lower Village District. During the American Revolution, Claremont had a large number of Loyalists, who used a small wooded valley in West Claremont called the "Tory Hole" to hide from the Patriots. In 1777, when the New Hampshire Grants declared their own sovereignty as the Vermont Republic, Claremont was one of sixteen New Hampshire towns inclined to join them, and made multiple attempts to do so. The water power harnessed from the Sugar River brought the town prosperity during the Industrial Revolution. Large brick factories were built along the stream, including the Sunapee Mills, Monadnock Mills, Claremont Machine Works, Home Mills, Sanford & Rossiter, and Claremont Manufacturing Company. Principal products were cotton and woolen textiles, lathes and planers, and paper. The Monadnock Mills Co. and Sullivan Mills Co. were responsible for the two most prominent collections of manufacturing structures in the Lower Village District. Monadnock Mills' textile operations began with its founding in 1842, and lasted through 1932, shuttering operations following the decline of the textile industry in New England during the 1920s. By the 1920s, Sullivan Mills Co. had become New Hampshire's largest machining company, as well as Claremont's largest employer. Sullivan's Machinery division merged with Joy Mining Machinery in 1946, becoming Joy Manufacturing Co. Its founder, inventor Joseph Francis Joy, stayed on as general manager of the facility, which remained the dominant employer in Claremont through the 1970s, when manufacturing technology had advanced sufficiently to hamper sales and productivity. Parts of the campus suffered fires in 1979 and 1981, and the branch was closed in 1983 and sold in 1984.

The cities of Claremont, California, Claremont, Minnesota, and Claremont Township, Minnesota, were named for Claremont, New Hampshire.

The city is in western Sullivan County and is bordered to the west by the Connecticut River, the boundary between New Hampshire and Vermont. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which are land and are water, comprising 2.04% of the town. The Sugar River flows from east to west through the center of Claremont, descending 150 feet (46 m) in elevation through the downtown, and empties into the Connecticut. The highest point in the city is the summit of Green Mountain, at 2018 feet (615 m) above sea level in the northeastern part of the city. Claremont lies fully within the Connecticut River watershed.

As of the census of 2010, there were 13,355 people, 5,697 households, and 3,461 families residing in the city. The population density was There were 6,293 housing units at an average density of The racial makeup of the city was 95.9% White, 0.6% African American, 0.3% Native American, 0.9% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 0.4% some other race, and 1.8% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.3% of the population. There were 5,697 households, out of which 28.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 42.1% were headed by married couples living together, 13.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 39.2% were non families. 30.8% of all households were made up of individuals, and 11.8% were someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.31, and the average family size was 2.83.

Claremont is part of New Hampshire's School Administrative Unit 6, or SAU 6. Stevens High School is the city's only public high school, and is located on Broad Street, just a few blocks from City Hall. Claremont Middle School, the city's only public middle school, is located just down the street to the south. Claremont is home to three elementary schools: Maple Avenue School, Bluff Elementary and Disnard Elementary. Also located in town are the New England Classical Academy, a private, Catholic school, and the Claremont Christian Academy, a private, parochial school offering education through 12th grade. Three elementary schools—North Street School, Way Elementary and the West Claremont Schoolhouse—were shut down, Way becoming home to several luxury apartments and North Street turned into offices. The city's opportunities for higher education include a branch of Granite State College, River Valley Community College, and the Sugar River Valley Regional Technical Center.

The only city within Sullivan County, Claremont is home to Claremont Municipal Airport. By highway, it is located 21 mile (34 km) south of Interstate 89 in Lebanon, New Hampshire, and 5 mile (8 km) east of Interstate 91 in Weathersfield, Vermont. It is served by state routes 11, 12, 12A 103, and 120. Routes 11 and 103 travel east as a concurrency to Newport, with Route 11 continuing east to New London and Franklin, while Route 103 turns southeast to Bradford and Warner. Routes 11 and 12 lead south as a concurrency to Charlestown. West from downtown, Route 12 leads into Vermont, then turns north to Windsor. Route 120 leads north from downtown through Cornish and Meriden to Lebanon. Route 12A bypasses downtown Claremont to the west, leading south to Charlestown and north to West Lebanon. Amtrak, the national passenger rail system, provides daily service aboard its Vermonter between Washington, D. C., and St. Albans, Vermont. The closest Greyhound bus stops are in Bellows Falls and White River Junction, Vermont. Local weekday peak direction commuter bus service between Springfield, Vermont, and Hanover, New Hampshire, is operated by the Current from the Interstate 91 Exit 8 Park and Ride in Ascutney, Vermont.

Wrightsville, the fictional small town setting in New England of many Ellery Queen novels and short stories, was based on Claremont. Ellery Queen was the pen name of cousins Frederic Dannay (1905–1982) and Manfred B. Lee (1905–1971). Betty Miller, a Claremont native, had married Manfred B. Lee in 1927. According to the Queen Spaceports website, the Claremont Eagle newspaper provided front page coverage (on July 10, 1959) of a talk Manfred Lee gave, in which he revealed that Wrightsville was indeed based on Claremont. Claremont was the filming location, though not the setting, of the 2006 movie Live Free or Die, co written and co directed by Gregg Kavet and Andy Robin and starring Aaron Stanford, Paul Schneider, Michael Rapaport, Judah Friedlander, Kevin Dunn, and Zooey Deschanel. Set in fictional Rutland, New Hampshire, it is a picaresque comedy drama about a small town would be crime legend. The name of the movie derives from the motto of the Granite State. The Topstone Mill, formerly a shoe factory and now housing a restaurant, was featured in season 8, episode 20 of Ghost Hunters, airing October 24, 2012, titled "Fear Factory". Claremont was featured in the fourteenth episode of the Small Town News Podcast, an improv comedy podcast that takes listeners on a fun and silly virtual trip to a small town in America each week, in which the hosts improvise scenes inspired by local newspaper stories.