North Hertfordshire is one of ten local government districts in the county of Hertfordshire, England. Its council is based in Letchworth Garden City and the largest town is Hitchin. The district also includes the towns of Baldock and Royston and numerous villages and surrounding rural areas. Part of the district lies within the Chiltern Hills, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

The neighbouring districts are East Hertfordshire, Stevenage, Welwyn Hatfield, St Albans, Central Bedfordshire, Luton, and South Cambridgeshire.

North Hertfordshire was created on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, covering the area of five former districts, which were all abolished at the same time:^[2]

• Baldock Urban District
• Hitchin Urban District
• Hitchin Rural District
• Letchworth Urban District
• Royston Urban District

The new district was named North Hertfordshire, reflecting its position within the wider county.^[3]

North Hertfordshire District Council provides district-level services. County-level services are provided by Hertfordshire County Council. Much of the district is covered by civil parishes, which form a third tier of local government for their areas.^[7][8]

North Hertfordshire contains four towns, being Baldock, Hitchin, Letchworth, and Royston. The district also borders the northern, western and southern edges of Stevenage, and some parts of the latter's urban area lie within North Hertfordshire rather than the borough of Stevenage, notably including much of the Great Ashby area. Knebworth is a post town, but its parish council has not formally declared it a town.

North Hertfordshire contains 35 civil parishes. Six of the smaller parishes do not have parish councils, having instead a parish meeting, being those marked with asterisks(*) below.^[20] In addition, the three towns of Baldock, Hitchin, and Letchworth are unparished areas, as no successor parishes were created for those three former urban districts on their abolition in 1974. A Letchworth Garden City Parish was subsequently created in 2005, but was abolished in 2013.^[21]

Since the last boundary changes in 2007, the council has comprised 49 councillors representing 24 wards, electing one, two or three councillors. Elections are held three years out of every four, electing approximately a third of the council each time. Elections to Hertfordshire County Council are held in the fourth year of the cycle when there are no borough council elections.^[22]

From the 2024 election, all seats on the council will be elected for the first time following new ward boundaries.^[23]

In 2021 the council adopted a new logo of four hearts (shown in the infobox above) and the style "North Herts Council" instead of its full formal name of "North Hertfordshire District Council". Prior to this, the council had used a logo of the initials "NHDC" in a green and purple square for approximately thirty years.^[25]