Plaquemines Parish area

Population and density of Plaquemines Parish

The Census Bureau estimates that 22,256 people lived in Plaquemines Parish on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,767 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #39 of 64 in Louisiana. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 23,558, the population has declined by 1,302 (−5.5%), compared with −0.9% for Louisiana as a whole.

With 780.6 square miles of land, that is 29 people per square mile (11 per km²), placing Plaquemines Parish #2,049 nationally for density and #47 in Louisiana. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Louisiana median is 48. Put another way, there are about 22 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 Plaquemines Parish

Plaquemines Parish has no incorporated cities, towns or villages. All 22,256 of its residents live in unincorporated communities, which the Census Bureau describes as census-designated places rather than municipalities.

Metropolitan area

Plaquemines 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; Plaquemines Parish accounts for 33.1% of the land and 2.3% 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

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

7003770038700407004170050700827008370091

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 Plaquemines Parish

Plaquemines Parish shares a land border with 3 county equivalents. It has more land than every one of them. The largest neighbor is St. Bernard Parish (377.5 mi²) and the smallest is Orleans Parish (169.6 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Plaquemines Parish forms a block of 1,628.6 mi² of land, of which it holds 47.9%.

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

Plaquemines Parish has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.3 times as much. Louisiana’s county land could hold about 55 areas the size of Plaquemines Parish.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 27.9 miles (45 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 Plaquemines Parish?

Plaquemines Parish has more land than 2,114 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 Plaquemines Parish at #228 nationally by total area, 880 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 69.6%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 68.4 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 Plaquemines 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.