Queens County area

Population and density of Queens County

The Census Bureau estimates that 2,358,182 people lived in Queens County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #12 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #2 of 62 in New York. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 2,405,427, the population has declined by 47,245 (−2%), compared with −1% for New York as a whole.

With 108.7 square miles of land, that is 21,690 people per square mile (8,374 per km²), placing Queens County #4 nationally for density and #4 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 0.03 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 Queens County

Every resident of Queens County lives within New York city, which spans 5 county equivalents. Queens County holds 2,358,182 of the city’s residents.

Metropolitan area

Queens 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; Queens County accounts for 1.8% of the land and 11.7% 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

68 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Queens County; 66 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

1100111004110051104011101111021110311104111051110611109113541135511356113571135811359113601136111362113631136411365113661136711368113691137011371113721137311374113751137711378113791138511411114121141311414114151141611417114181141911420114211142211423114241142611427114281142911430114321143311434114351143611439114511169111692116931169411697

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 Queens County

Queens County shares a land border with 4 county equivalents. It has more land than 3 of them. The largest neighbor is Nassau County (284.5 mi²) and the smallest is New York County (22.7 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Queens County forms a block of 527.5 mi² of land, of which it holds 20.6%.

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

Queens County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 9.5 times as much. New York’s county land could hold about 433 areas the size of Queens County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 10.4 miles (16.8 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 Queens County?

Queens County has more land than 137 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 Queens County at #3,050 nationally by total area, 35 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 40.1%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 38.9 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 Queens 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.