Ocean County area

Population and density of Ocean County

The Census Bureau estimates that 673,746 people lived in Ocean County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #106 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #5 of 21 in New Jersey. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 637,328, the population has grown by 36,418 (+5.7%), compared with +2.8% for New Jersey as a whole.

With 628.3 square miles of land, that is 1,072 people per square mile (414 per km²), placing Ocean County #177 nationally for density and #12 in New Jersey. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the New Jersey median is 1,137. Put another way, there are about 0.597 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 Ocean County

Ocean County is divided into 33 municipalities and townships. In New Jersey, county subdivisions are local governments, and together they cover all of the county’s land and residents.

The most populous is Lakewood township, with 143,765 residents (21.3% of the county). The largest by land is Jackson township, at 99.2 mi², or 15.8% of the county’s land. The county seat, Toms River township, has 100,899 residents. Among those with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Seaside Park borough grew fastest since then (+48.1%).

Population: U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2025 subcounty estimates, counting only the part of each subdivision inside Ocean County. Land: 2026 Census Gazetteer. How communities are listed.

Metropolitan area

Ocean County is a central county of the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ Metropolitan Statistical Area, in the Lakewood-New Brunswick, NJ metropolitan division. Its 22 county equivalents have 20,112,448 residents on 6,139.7 square miles of land; Ocean County accounts for 10.2% of the land and 3.3% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #34 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #1 by population. It belongs to the New York-Newark, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

30 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Ocean County; 29 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

080050800608008080500808708092085140852708533087010872108722087230872408731087320873308734087350873808740087410874208751087520875308755087570875808759

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 Ocean County

Ocean County shares a land border with 3 county equivalents. It has more land than 2 of them. The largest neighbor is Burlington County (799.3 mi²) and the smallest is Monmouth County (468.2 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Ocean County forms a block of 2,451.4 mi² of land, of which it holds 25.6%.

How big is Ocean County compared with U.S. states?

Ocean County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.6 times as much. New Jersey’s county land could hold about 12 areas the size of Ocean County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 25.1 miles (40.3 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 Ocean County?

Ocean County has more land than 1,691 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 Ocean County at #917 nationally by total area, 614 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 31.3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 30.2 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 Ocean 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.