Richmond County area

Population and density of Richmond County

The Census Bureau estimates that 501,290 people lived in Richmond County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #150 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #10 of 62 in New York. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 496,252, the population has grown by 5,038 (+1%), compared with −1% for New York as a whole.

With 57.5 square miles of land, that is 8,715 people per square mile (3,365 per km²), placing Richmond County #12 nationally for density and #5 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 0.073 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 Richmond County

Every resident of Richmond County lives within New York city, which spans 5 county equivalents. Richmond County holds 501,290 of the city’s residents.

Metropolitan area

Richmond 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; Richmond County accounts for 0.9% of the land and 2.5% 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

13 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Richmond County, and each lies mostly inside the county.

10301103021030310304103051030610307103081030910310103111031210314

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are the Census Bureau’s approximations of USPS ZIP Code service areas, from the 2020 Census relationship files. Post-office-box and single-address ZIP Codes have no tabulation area.

Counties bordering Richmond County

Richmond County has no land border with another county equivalent in the Census cartographic boundaries: open water separates it from every other county equivalent. Its nearest entries in the national land ranking are listed below, and the New York directory lists every county equivalent in the state.

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

Richmond County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 18 times as much. New York’s county land could hold about 819 areas the size of Richmond County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 7.58 miles (12.2 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 Richmond County?

Richmond County has more land than 102 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 Richmond County at #3,108 nationally by total area, 12 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 44.1%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 42.9 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 Richmond 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.