Palm Beach County, Florida

Palm Beach County is a county in Florida, United States, on the Atlantic coast roughly 65 miles
north of Miami. It had a population of 1,492,191 at the 2020 census, an estimated 1,575,726 by
2025, and covers 1,970 square miles of land (5,100 km2) plus 413 square miles of water, centred
near 26°43′N 80°03′W.

West Palm Beach is the county seat and its largest city; the county’s postal code is 33401 for
the downtown seat. The county holds 39 incorporated municipalities — cities, towns and
villages — plus dozens of unincorporated communities across its coastal, central and Glades
regions, and it runs on Eastern time. Its FIPS code is 12099.

Towns & Villages in Palm Beach County

All 39 incorporated municipalities are listed below, from the coastal barrier islands to the
inland Glades farm towns on Lake Okeechobee. Florida law gives cities, towns and villages the same
powers — the label is a historical choice each community made at incorporation, not a legal
tier. CDP = Census-designated place (unincorporated, no municipal government); Unincorp. = a
named unincorporated community with no CDP boundary of its own.

Several names are easy to mix up. West Palm Beach is the mainland county seat
and by far the largest city. Palm Beach is a separate, much smaller town on the
barrier island across the Intracoastal Waterway — the address of Mar-a-Lago and The Breakers
resort. South Palm Beach is a narrow half-mile-long town further south on the same
barrier island, distinct from both. Palm Beach Gardens sits inland, north of West
Palm Beach, and shares no boundary with Palm Beach town. North Palm Beach is a
separate village between Palm Beach Gardens and Lake Park, and Royal Palm Beach is
further west still, an inland suburb with no coastline at all. Treat these six as six different
places on six different maps, not variations of one town.

Beyond the 39 municipalities, several large unincorporated communities have their own Census
boundary but no municipal government of their own. The biggest, by far, is The Acreage — a
sprawling low-density subdivision west of Royal Palm Beach that outnumbers most of the county’s
actual cities. These are Census-designated places, not incorporated towns, so they have no mayor
or city council; county government runs services directly. Dozens of smaller gated communities and
unincorporated pockets exist beyond this list; the table below covers the largest by population.

ZIP Codes

• 33401 — West Palm Beach (downtown; the city spans 33401–33422 in total)
• 33431 — Boca Raton
• 33435 — Boynton Beach (also serves Ocean Ridge and Briny Breezes)
• 33444 — Delray Beach
• 33414 — Wellington
• 33458 — Jupiter
• 33410 — Palm Beach Gardens
• 33463 — Greenacres
• 33411 — Royal Palm Beach
• 33460 — Lake Worth Beach
• 33404 — Riviera Beach (also serves Palm Beach Shores)
• 33461 — Palm Springs
• 33430 — Belle Glade
• 33408 — North Palm Beach and Juno Beach
• 33462 — Lantana (also serves Hypoluxo, Manalapan and Atlantis)
• 33480 — Palm Beach and South Palm Beach
• 33403 — Lake Park
• 33469 — Tequesta (also serves Jupiter Inlet Colony)
• 33476 — Pahokee
• 33493 — South Bay
• 33470 — Loxahatchee Groves and Westlake
• 33406 — Lake Clarke Shores and Cloud Lake
• 33415 — Haverhill
• 33407 — Mangonia Park

Briny Breezes, Gulf Stream, Golf and Glen Ridge have no post office or ZIP code of their own;
each is small enough — under 800 residents — that mail is delivered under a neighboring
town’s ZIP, and the Postal Service never assigned them a separate one.

Geography

Palm Beach County stretches from the Atlantic Ocean west to Lake Okeechobee, the largest
freshwater lake in the state. The coastal third is barrier island and Intracoastal Waterway; the
middle third is suburban and agricultural transition land, including the 60,000-acre Arthur R.
Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge; the western third is the Everglades Agricultural
Area, drained sawgrass marsh now farmed for sugarcane and winter vegetables around Belle Glade,
Pahokee and South Bay. The county borders Martin
County to the north, Broward County
to the south, Hendry County to the west,
and Glades County and
Okeechobee County to the northwest,
where the county line runs out into Lake Okeechobee.

Demographics

The county’s population was 1,492,191 at the 2020 census, up from 1.32 million in 2010, and the
Census Bureau’s latest estimate puts it near 1,575,726. West Palm Beach (117,415) and Boca Raton
(97,422) are the two largest communities; together with Boynton Beach and Delray Beach they hold
roughly a quarter of the county’s people on the coastal strip. Median household income was $68,874
(2017–21 American Community Survey five-year estimate), well above the Florida statewide
figure of about $61,800 over the same period, driven by the wealthy coastal towns from Palm Beach
to Boca Raton. Overall density is about 758 people per square mile, but that average hides a huge
range: Palm Beach and Manalapan run only a few hundred residents on multiple square miles of
oceanfront estate lots, while Lake Worth Beach and Greenacres exceed 6,000 people per square mile.

Economy & Local Life

Healthcare, retail, tourism and professional services employ the most people along the coast;
agriculture still anchors the Glades towns, where Florida Crystals and US Sugar run cane fields and
processing mills around Belle Glade, long nicknamed “Muck City” for its black organic soil. The
School District of Palm Beach County is the county’s single largest employer, with more than
27,000 workers. Pratt & Whitney runs a major jet-engine research and testing campus near Jupiter
and Palm Beach Gardens. NextEra Energy, the parent of Florida Power & Light, is headquartered in
Juno Beach; Office Depot is headquartered in Boca Raton, home also to Florida Atlantic University.
Several Wall Street investment firms relocated staff to West Palm Beach’s downtown financial
district in the early 2020s, adding a new finance cluster to the traditional tourism economy. The
Winter Equestrian Festival runs January through April in Wellington, drawing the world’s largest
horse show by prize money; SunFest, a waterfront music festival, fills downtown West Palm Beach
each May; and the South Florida Fair runs each January at the county fairgrounds.

History

Palm Beach County was authorized on April 30, 1909, carved out of the old, much larger Dade
County. The name predates the county: settlers on Lake Worth in the 1870s found coconuts washed
ashore from the wrecked Spanish barque Providencia in January 1878 and planted them, and the
resulting palm groves gave the settlement its name. Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway
reached the area in 1894, and Flagler built the Royal Poinciana Hotel across the lake from his own
Whitehall estate in Palm Beach, launching the county’s identity as a winter resort for the wealthy
alongside the working farm towns that grew up around the lake. The county’s deadliest event was the
Okeechobee hurricane of September 16–17, 1928, a Category 4 storm that breached the lake’s
southern dike and drowned an estimated 2,500 people, most of them Black migrant farmworkers around
Belle Glade and Pahokee — still one of the deadliest natural disasters in United States
history. The county returned to the national spotlight in 2000, when its confusingly designed
“butterfly ballot” became a flashpoint in the disputed presidential election recount.

Getting There

Interstate 95 runs the length of the county’s coastal strip, and Florida’s Turnpike parallels it
a few miles inland; no other interstate crosses the county.

• Miami — 65 miles south
• Fort Lauderdale — 45 miles south
• Orlando — 165 miles north
• Fort Pierce — 45 miles north

Palm Beach International Airport (PBI) sits inside West Palm Beach, a few miles from downtown.
The West Palm Beach Amtrak station, on the Silver Meteor and Silver Star lines, is the county’s only
intercity rail stop; Brightline also runs higher-speed passenger service through a downtown West
Palm Beach station on the Miami–Orlando corridor.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Palm Beach County?
It is on Florida’s southeastern Atlantic coast, between Broward and Martin counties, stretching
inland to Lake Okeechobee.

What is the population of Palm Beach County?
1,492,191 at the 2020 census, estimated at 1,575,726 as of the latest Census Bureau count.

How big is Palm Beach County?
1,970 square miles of land (5,100 km2), plus 413 square miles of water — the largest county
by land area in Florida.

What is the county seat of Palm Beach County?
West Palm Beach, the county’s largest city.

How many towns and villages are in Palm Beach County?
39 incorporated municipalities, from West Palm Beach (117,415 people) down to Cloud Lake (122
people), plus large unincorporated communities such as The Acreage and Loxahatchee.

What ZIP codes does Palm Beach County use?
33401 through 33499 cover the county, with 33401 serving downtown West Palm Beach; see the ZIP
Codes section above for the full breakdown by town.

What is the difference between West Palm Beach and Palm Beach?
West Palm Beach is the mainland county seat and largest city; Palm Beach is a separate, smaller
town on the barrier island across the Intracoastal Waterway, best known for Mar-a-Lago and The
Breakers.

More counties in this state: Towns and
villages in Florida.