Orleans Parish area

Population and density of Orleans Parish

The Census Bureau estimates that 362,154 people lived in Orleans Parish on July 1, 2025. That ranks #211 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #3 of 64 in Louisiana. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 384,129, the population has declined by 21,975 (−5.7%), compared with −0.9% for Louisiana as a whole.

With 169.6 square miles of land, that is 2,136 people per square mile (825 per km²), placing Orleans Parish #74 nationally for density and #1 in Louisiana. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Louisiana median is 48. Put another way, there are about 0.3 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 Orleans Parish

Every resident of Orleans Parish lives within New Orleans city. The city and the county equivalent cover the same territory, 169.6 square miles of land in the 2026 place Gazetteer, so there are no separate towns or unincorporated areas to list.

Metropolitan area

Orleans Parish is a central county of the New Orleans-Metairie, LA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 7 county equivalents have 970,849 residents on 2,358.6 square miles of land; Orleans Parish accounts for 7.2% of the land and 37.3% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #139 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #60 by population. It belongs to the New Orleans-Metairie-Slidell, LA-MS Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

20 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Orleans Parish, and each lies mostly inside the county.

7011270113701147011570116701177011870119701227012470125701267012770128701297013070131701397014870163

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are the Census Bureau’s approximations of USPS ZIP Code service areas, from the 2020 Census relationship files. Post-office-box and single-address ZIP Codes have no tabulation area.

Counties bordering Orleans Parish

Orleans Parish shares a land border with 4 county equivalents. Each of them has more land than Orleans Parish. The largest neighbor is St. Tammany Parish (845.3 mi²) and the smallest is Jefferson Parish (300.9 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Orleans Parish forms a block of 2,473.9 mi² of land, of which it holds 6.9%.

How big is Orleans Parish compared with U.S. states?

Orleans Parish has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 6.1 times as much. Louisiana’s county land could hold about 255 areas the size of Orleans Parish.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 13 miles (21 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 Orleans Parish?

Orleans Parish has more land than 182 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 Orleans Parish at #2,732 nationally by total area, 308 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 51.5%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 50.4 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 Orleans Parish 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.