Aspen Hill has been a Montgomery County stalwart for well over a century. A straightforward collection of suburban neighborhoods, the community is sewn together by a common spirit of camaraderie.

“People care about the neighborhood,” said Elliot Chabot, who certainly knows. He’s lived in Aspen Hill since 1964, and served as the Aspen Hill Civic Association president from 1985 to 1995.

Local lore has it the community got its name in the mid-1800s when a post office was constructed on a hill laced with aspen trees. That hill was near the modern-day intersection of Connecticut and Georgia avenues — then, as now, the heart of town.

Approximately 13 square miles, Aspen Hill is bordered roughly on the north by Derwood, the northeast by Olney, the south by Wheaton, the west by the city of Rockville and the east by Layhill. It is unincorporated, and its residents’ mailing addresses are either in Rockville or Silver Spring.

“Aspen Hill is really a collection of neighborhoods,” Chabot said. “Groups tend to work together with each other, the PTAs, the local representatives. There’s a great Friends of the Library chapter.”

The library, located on Aspen Hill Road, is one of the community’s main gathering points. The 112-acre Matthew Henson State Park and smaller parks, such as the one where Arctic Avenue and Arctic Terrace meet, also provide havens for people to enjoy the outdoors.

The primary shopping districts are located where Georgia and Connecticut avenues intersect with Aspen Hill Road, and where Bauer Drive and Norbeck Road meet. There are strip malls that provide access to the daily necessities such as grocery stores, drugstores, and local restaurants and take-out joints.

The neighborhood has a population of about 61,090, according to the 2005 Census Update Survey conducted by Montgomery County Park and Planning. The area has approximately 59,500 households living in properties ranging from single-family homes to apartments. The median household income is $63,780, according to Park and Planning 2002 statistics.

The 60,000-plus citizens of Aspen Hill include all ages and many ethnicities. Students go through either the Rockville High, Wheaton High or Kennedy High feeder systems. Even if they leave the area, they very well could return to retire at Leisure World, a massive retirement community that includes another strip mall shopping district.

Henry B. “Hank” Heller, the longtime Democrat who has represented Aspen Hill in the Maryland House of Delegates since 1987, calls Leisure World home. He’s lived there for five years, and in Aspen Hill since 1969.

“It’s a solid, middle-class community,” Heller said. “It’s changed demographics over the years, but it hasn’t changed character. It’s still that solid family-oriented community.”