Wayne County area

Population and density of Wayne County

The Census Bureau estimates that 91,250 people lived in Wayne County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #672 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #31 of 62 in New York. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 91,287, the population has declined by 37 (−0%), compared with −1% for New York as a whole.

With 603.8 square miles of land, that is 151 people per square mile (58 per km²), placing Wayne County #770 nationally for density and #27 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 4.2 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 Wayne County

Wayne County is divided into 15 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 Arcadia town, with 13,522 residents (14.8% of the county). The largest by land is Sodus town, at 67.3 mi², or 11.1% of the county’s land. The county seat, Lyons town, has 5,555 residents. Among those with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Sodus town grew fastest since then (+2.3%).

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

Metropolitan area

Wayne County is an outlying county of the Rochester, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 5 county equivalents have 1,056,149 residents on 2,927.7 square miles of land; Wayne County accounts for 20.6% of the land and 8.6% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #101 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #55 by population. It belongs to the Rochester-Batavia-Seneca Falls, NY Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

22 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Wayne County; 18 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

13143131461315413156144131443214433144501448914502145051451314516145191452214542145511455514568145801458914590

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 Wayne County

Wayne County shares a land border with 4 county equivalents. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Cayuga County (691.6 mi²) and the smallest is Seneca County (323.7 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Wayne County forms a block of 2,920.1 mi² of land, of which it holds 20.7%.

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

Wayne County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.7 times as much. New York’s county land could hold about 78 areas the size of Wayne County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 24.6 miles (39.5 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 Wayne County?

Wayne County has more land than 1,607 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 Wayne County at #497 nationally by total area, 1,118 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 56.3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 55.2 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 Wayne 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.