The Largest Borough in New York City Now and in 30 Years

The largest borough in New York is Brooklyn. That is if you’re talking about population. If you’re talking about geographical distance, then the largest borough in New York is Queens. Queens covers a massive 109 square miles in total, much larger than any of the other boroughs.

However, for the purpose of this article, we’re talking about population. In that regard, Brooklyn takes the cake with a population of approximately 2.5 million people. With that population, it would make Brooklyn the third-largest city in the United States if it was a stand-alone city.

That being said, Brooklyn and Queens are practically neck and neck in this regard. The two boroughs have only a slim population difference when you’re talking about stats as large as NYC.

Population Projections

According to the data presented by the New York City government, by 2050 Brooklyn should still have the largest population out of the city’s boroughs. In fact, the data seems to suggest that the population proportions of the city’s boroughs will be roughly similar to what they are today.

This is expressed in numbers via Brooklyn having approximately 400,000 more residents than Queens in the year 2050. This isn’t too far off today’s statistics. The numbers show that Brooklyn has approximately 300,000 more people than Queens at the present moment.

The Total Population of New York Mid-Century

Interestingly, the span of 2030-2050 has some very modest projected population gains for NYC as a whole. The city’s population is projected only to rise by about 700,000 individuals over the course of that 20 years. Although this may seem like a lot, by the standards of this booming metropolis, it’s a relatively small proportion of the total population.

The borough that is projected to experience the largest boost in demographics is the Bronx. This borough is projected to experience a population boost of 14% from 2023-2053. This is three percentage points higher than Brooklyn’s 10%.

Overall, the next few decades are projected to be a much more modest growth period than the years 1980-2010. These decades saw the population of the city rise by more than 1,000,000 individuals.