Essex County area

Population and density of Essex County

The Census Bureau estimates that 36,438 people lived in Essex County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,316 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #56 of 62 in New York. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 37,379, the population has declined by 941 (−2.5%), compared with −1% for New York as a whole.

With 1,794.1 square miles of land, that is 20 people per square mile (7.8 per km²), placing Essex County #2,319 nationally for density and #61 in New York. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the New York median is 112. Put another way, there are about 32 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 Essex County

Essex County is divided into 18 cities and towns. In New York, county subdivisions are local governments, and together they cover all of the county’s land and residents.

The most populous is North Elba town, with 7,768 residents (21.3% of the county). The largest by land is Newcomb town, at 226.2 mi², or 12.6% of the county’s land. The county seat, Elizabethtown town, has 1,180 residents. Among those with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, North Elba town grew fastest since then (+3.8%).

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

Metropolitan area

Essex County is not part of any metropolitan or micropolitan statistical area in the Office of Management and Budget’s July 2023 delineation; 1,306 other county equivalents are also outside one. These areas are built around an urban core of at least 10,000 people plus the counties tied to it by commuting, so counties outside them are generally rural.

ZIP codes

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

128361285112852128531285512857128581286112870128721288312911129121291312928129321293612941129421294312944129461295012956129601296112964129741297512977129831298712993129961299712998

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 Essex County

Essex County shares a land border with 7 county equivalents, including 2 in Vermont. It has more land than every one of them. The largest neighbor is Hamilton County (1,717.4 mi²) and the smallest is Chittenden County (536.9 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Essex County forms a block of 9,180.2 mi² of land, of which it holds 19.5%.

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

Essex County has more land than 1 of the 50 states. It is about 1.7 times the land area of Rhode Island (1,033.9 mi²), while Delaware, the next larger state, has 1.1 times as much land (1,948.6 mi²). New York’s county land could hold about 26 areas the size of Essex County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 42.4 miles (68.2 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 Essex County?

Essex County has more land than 2,891 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 Essex County at #337 nationally by total area, 6 places farther from the top than its land rank. Other county equivalents gain more area when their water measurements are included.

Its water share is 6.4%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 5.2 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 Essex 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.