Palm Beach County area

Population and density of Palm Beach County

The Census Bureau estimates that 1,575,726 people lived in Palm Beach County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #24 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #3 of 67 in Florida. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 1,492,191, the population has grown by 83,535 (+5.6%), compared with +8.9% for Florida as a whole.

With 1,964.3 square miles of land, that is 802 people per square mile (310 per km²), placing Palm Beach County #228 nationally for density and #11 in Florida. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Florida median is 209. Put another way, there are about 0.798 acres of land per resident.

U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 population estimates. Estimates are revised each year and are not decennial census counts. Density divides the whole population by the whole county’s land area, so it describes an average, not how settlement is distributed within the county. Population sources and methods.

Cities and towns in Palm Beach County

39 incorporated places lie at least partly in Palm Beach County. Together they are home to 889,786 people (56.5%); the other 685,940 (43.5%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is West Palm Beach city, with 127,189 residents in the county. By land, Palm Beach Gardens city is the largest at 59.3 mi². Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Mangonia Park town grew fastest since then (+23.9%).

Population: U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2025 subcounty estimates, counting only the part of each place inside Palm Beach County. Land: 2026 Census Gazetteer, for the whole place even where it extends into other counties. How communities are listed.

Metropolitan area

Palm Beach County is a central county of the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area, in the West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Delray Beach, FL metropolitan division. Its 3 county equivalents have 6,391,072 residents on 5,067.3 square miles of land; Palm Beach County accounts for 38.8% of the land and 24.7% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #51 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #8 by population. It belongs to the Miami-Port St. Lucie-Fort Lauderdale, FL Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

53 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Palm Beach County; 50 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

3340133403334043340533406334073340833409334103341133412334133341433415334173341833426334283343033431334323343333434334353343633437334383344033444334453344633449334583346033461334623346333467334693347033472334733347633477334783348033483334843348633487334933349633498

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are the Census Bureau’s approximations of USPS ZIP Code service areas, from the 2020 Census relationship files. Lighter codes have less than half of their land in this county. Post-office-box and single-address ZIP Codes have no tabulation area.

Counties bordering Palm Beach County

Palm Beach County shares a land border with 3 county equivalents. It has more land than every one of them. The largest neighbor is Broward County (1,203 mi²) and the smallest is Martin County (543.9 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Palm Beach County forms a block of 4,867.1 mi² of land, of which it holds 40.4%.

How big is Palm Beach County compared with U.S. states?

Palm Beach County has more land than 2 of the 50 states. It is about 1 times the land area of Delaware (1,948.6 mi²), while Connecticut, the next larger state, has 2.5 times as much land (4,842.5 mi²). Florida’s county land could hold about 27 areas the size of Palm Beach County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 44.3 miles (71.3 km) on each side. Real county shapes are rarely square, so this is a scale reference rather than a width or driving distance.

State figures are the sums of each state’s county-equivalent land measurements in the same Census release, so states and counties are compared on the same basis. Published state totals can differ slightly because of rounding. Compare all states · Counties bigger than entire states.

What stands out about Palm Beach County?

Palm Beach County has more land than 2,931 of the other 3,221 county equivalents in the dataset.

A median is the middle county-equivalent measurement, not the average of the largest and smallest. All three bars use the same linear scale. Very small areas may appear as a thin sliver; the labels retain their values.

Does including water change its rank?

Using land plus water places Palm Beach County at #253 nationally by total area, 38 places closer to the top than its land rank. The water assigned to this geography moves it ahead of some county equivalents with more land.

Its water share is 17.6%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 16.4 percentage points higher. This describes the statistical geography’s land/water mix, not flood exposure or developable land.

Closest positions in the national land ranking

These entries sit immediately beside Palm Beach County in the national ranking. They can be in different states and are not necessarily geographic neighbors.

Calculated from the same Census release as the area table. Total-area order uses original ALAND + AWATER; water shares and chart labels use published square miles. Calculation details.