The borough, as Kings County, at , is the second
most densely populated county in the U.S. after Manhattan (New York County), and the most populous
county in the state, as of 2022. In the
2020 United States census, the population stood at 2,736,074. Had Brooklyn remained an independent city on Long Island, it would now be the
fourth most populous American city after the rest of
New York City,
Los Angeles, and
Chicago, while ahead of
Houston. With a land area of and a water area of , Kings County, one of the twelve original counties established under British rule in 1683 in the then-
province of New York, is the state of New York's fourth-smallest county by land area and third smallest by total area.
