Kent County area

Population and density of Kent County

The Census Bureau estimates that 173,495 people lived in Kent County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #409 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #2 of 5 in Rhode Island. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 170,371, the population has grown by 3,124 (+1.8%), compared with +1.6% for Rhode Island as a whole.

With 168.6 square miles of land, that is 1,029 people per square mile (397 per km²), placing Kent County #181 nationally for density and #3 in Rhode Island. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Rhode Island median is 1,029. Put another way, there are about 0.622 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 Kent County

Kent County is divided into 5 cities and towns. In Rhode Island, county subdivisions are local governments, and together they cover all of the county’s land and residents.

The most populous is Warwick city, with 84,187 residents (48.5% of the county). The largest by land is Coventry town, at 59.1 mi², or 35% of the county’s land. The county seat, East Greenwich town, has 14,790 residents. Among those with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, East Greenwich town grew fastest since then (+3.4%).

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

Metropolitan area

Kent County is a central county of the Providence-Warwick, RI-MA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 6 county equivalents have 1,708,161 residents on 1,587 square miles of land; Kent County accounts for 10.6% of the land and 10.2% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #211 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #40 by population. It belongs to the Boston-Worcester-Providence, MA-RI-NH Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

9 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Kent County; 8 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

028160281702818028270283102886028880288902893

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 Kent County

Kent County shares a land border with 3 county equivalents, including 1 in Connecticut. Each of them has more land than Kent County. The largest neighbor is Northeastern Connecticut Planning Region (553.9 mi²) and the smallest is Washington County (329.3 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Kent County forms a block of 1,461.2 mi² of land, of which it holds 11.5%.

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

Kent County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 6.1 times as much. Rhode Island’s county land could hold about 6.1 areas the size of Kent County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 13 miles (20.9 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 Kent County?

Kent County has more land than 181 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 Kent County at #3,041 nationally by total area, the same position as its land rank. Changing the area definition does not change its position in this release.

Its water share is 10.4%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 9.2 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 Kent 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.