Kings County area

Population and density of Kings County

The Census Bureau estimates that 2,653,963 people lived in Kings County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #9 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #1 of 62 in New York. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 2,736,291, the population has declined by 82,328 (−3%), compared with −1% for New York as a whole.

With 69.4 square miles of land, that is 38,254 people per square mile (14,770 per km²), placing Kings County #2 nationally for density and #2 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 0.017 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 Kings County

Every resident of Kings County lives within New York city, which spans 5 county equivalents. Kings County holds 2,653,963 of the city’s residents.

Metropolitan area

Kings County is a central county of the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ Metropolitan Statistical Area, in the New York-Jersey City-White Plains, NY-NJ metropolitan division. Its 22 county equivalents have 20,112,448 residents on 6,139.7 square miles of land; Kings County accounts for 1.1% of the land and 13.2% 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

40 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Kings County; 38 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

11201112031120411205112061120711208112091121011211112121121311214112151121611217112181121911220112211122211223112241122511226112281122911230112311123211233112341123511236112371123811239112491141611417

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 Kings County

Kings County shares a land border with 2 county equivalents. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Queens County (108.7 mi²) and the smallest is New York County (22.7 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Kings County forms a block of 200.8 mi² of land, of which it holds 34.6%.

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

Kings County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 15 times as much. New York’s county land could hold about 679 areas the size of Kings County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 8.33 miles (13.4 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 Kings County?

Kings County has more land than 118 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 Kings County at #3,111 nationally by total area, 7 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 28.4%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 27.2 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 Kings 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.