Salem County area

Population and density of Salem County

The Census Bureau estimates that 66,280 people lived in Salem County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #841 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #21 of 21 in New Jersey. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 64,823, the population has grown by 1,457 (+2.2%), compared with +2.8% for New Jersey as a whole.

With 331.9 square miles of land, that is 200 people per square mile (77 per km²), placing Salem County #640 nationally for density and #21 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 3.2 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 Salem County

Salem County is divided into 15 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 Pennsville township, with 12,923 residents (19.5% of the county). The largest by land is Lower Alloways Creek township, at 45.3 mi², or 13.7% of the county’s land. The county seat, Salem city, has 5,389 residents. Among those with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Quinton township grew fastest since then (+3.6%).

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

Metropolitan area

Salem County is a central county of the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD Metropolitan Statistical Area, in the Wilmington, DE-MD-NJ metropolitan division. Its 11 county equivalents have 6,329,118 residents on 4,603.2 square miles of land; Salem County accounts for 7.2% of the land and 1% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #58 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #9 by population. It belongs to the Philadelphia-Reading-Camden, PA-NJ-DE-MD Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

14 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Salem County; 11 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

0800108023080380806708069080700807208079080850809808302083180834308344

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 Salem County

Salem County shares a land border with 3 county equivalents, including 1 in Delaware. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Cumberland County (483.4 mi²) and the smallest is Gloucester County (322 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Salem County forms a block of 1,563.6 mi² of land, of which it holds 21.2%.

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

Salem County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 3.1 times as much. New Jersey’s county land could hold about 22 areas the size of Salem County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 18.2 miles (29.3 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 Salem County?

Salem County has more land than 487 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 Salem County at #2,683 nationally by total area, 52 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 10.9%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 9.8 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 Salem 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.