Cranborne is a village in East Dorset, England. As at the 2011 Census the parish had 779 ordinarily resident people, unaltered from 2001.
The appropriate electoral ward is called 'Crane'. This ward includes Wimborne St. Giles in the west and south to Woodlands. The total population of this ward at the 2011 census was 2,189.
Once a very small, intensely agricultural market town, the village is on chalk downland called Cranborne Chase, part of a large expanse of chalk in southern England which includes the nearby Salisbury Plain and Dorset Downs.