Guttenberg, New Jersey leads at 61,705.1 people per square mile of land. Its 11,910 residents occupy a source land area of 0.193 square miles. West New York, New Jersey follows at 53,556.3 people per square mile.
The largest-population city, New York, New York, has a density of 28,569.5 people per square mile. Population size and density therefore measure different attributes: one counts residents, while the other divides by compatible land area.
Small municipal boundaries and density extremes
7128 ranked incorporated places have less than one square mile of land. A compact municipal boundary can produce a high geographic average, even when the municipality has fewer residents than a much larger city.
The ranking excludes balance records and uses whole incorporated places, rather than metro areas or Census urban areas. Adding a surrounding suburban county would change both the population and the land denominator.
Comparison universe: Active whole incorporated-place records (SUMLEV 162); consolidated-government balances are excluded. Source: PEP Vintage 2025. Population date: July 1, 2025. Growth interval: July 1, 2024–2025. Ties share a competition rank; subsequent ranks skip tied positions. Filters produce a subset of this universe and do not change the national profile rank.
Density equals the July 1, 2025 resident population divided by 2025 Gazetteer land area. Original land area in square meters is converted using 2,589,988.110336 square meters per square mile. Water is excluded; unrounded land areas and population values determine the order. Displayed density is rounded to one decimal place.
The matching area is joined by official geographic code. 0 records in this eligible universe are excluded because a valid positive land-area denominator is unavailable. A missing denominator is not a zero density. Density refers to the whole geography, rather than a built-up area, a housing parcel or a person's living conditions.
Sources, calculation rules and downloadable results
Source: sub-est2025.csv, Census Population Estimates Program, Vintage 2025, variables POPESTIMATE2024 and POPESTIMATE2025. Density additionally uses 2025 Gazetteer ALAND joined by official code. The retained source snapshot is pep-2025-r1; calculations use unrounded values.
Density order divides resident population by compatible land area in square miles. Equal unrounded metric values share a competition rank, and the following rank skips the tied positions. Display rounding can make different underlying values look identical; the table order uses the originals.
Export visible rows after filtering to preserve the displayed subset. Use complete dataset downloads for all observations, or population research tools for a longer comparison. A ranking is a dated descriptive result, not an official forecast. Publication vintages can revise earlier years; retain the release identifier with your research.
