Río Grande Municipio area

Population and density of Río Grande Municipio

The Census Bureau estimates that 44,799 people lived in Río Grande Municipio on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,117 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #17 of 78 in Puerto Rico. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 47,061, the population has declined by 2,262 (−4.8%), compared with −3.1% for Puerto Rico as a whole.

With 60.6 square miles of land, that is 739 people per square mile (286 per km²), placing Río Grande Municipio #251 nationally for density and #42 in Puerto Rico. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Puerto Rico median is 754. Put another way, there are about 0.865 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 Río Grande Municipio

Puerto Rico has no incorporated places below the municipio: Río Grande Municipio is itself the local government. The Census Bureau describes the settlements inside it, such as zonas urbanas and comunidades, as statistical places, and publishes no separate annual estimates for them.

Metropolitan area

Río Grande Municipio is a central county of the San Juan-Bayamón-Caguas, PR Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 40 county equivalents have 2,024,195 residents on 1,437.8 square miles of land; Río Grande Municipio accounts for 4.2% of the land and 2.2% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #229 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #36 by population. It belongs to the San Juan-Bayamón, PR Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

1 ZIP Code Tabulation Area has land in Río Grande Municipio, and it lies mostly inside the county.

00745

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 Río Grande Municipio

Río Grande Municipio shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. It has more land than every one of them. The largest neighbor is Naguabo Municipio (51.7 mi²) and the smallest is Loíza Municipio (19.4 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Río Grande Municipio forms a block of 253.3 mi² of land, of which it holds 23.9%.

How big is Río Grande Municipio compared with U.S. states?

Río Grande Municipio has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 17 times as much. Puerto Rico’s county land could hold about 57 areas the size of Río Grande Municipio.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 7.78 miles (12.5 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 Río Grande Municipio?

Río Grande Municipio has more land than 108 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 Río Grande Municipio at #3,116 nationally by total area, 2 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 32.3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 31.1 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 Río Grande Municipio 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.