Wayne County is a county in Michigan, United States, anchored by Detroit on the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 1,793,561 at the 2020 census, an estimated 1,769,038 by 2025, and covers 673 square miles (1,743 km2) centred near 42\u00b017\u2032N 83\u00b016\u2032W.<\/p>\n
Detroit is the county seat and its largest city; its postal code is 48226. The county holds 34 cities, 9 charter and civil townships and roughly 20 unincorporated communities, and it runs on Eastern Time. Its FIPS code is 26163.<\/p>\n
Wayne County has 43 incorporated municipalities on record — 34 cities and 9 townships — making it Michigan’s most fully incorporated county. Two cities, Flat Rock and Grosse Pointe Shores, extend only partly into the county; the rest of each sits in Monroe and Macomb counties respectively. Charter Twp. and Civil Twp. denote Michigan’s two forms of organized township government, which in Wayne County function as full municipalities rather than unincorporated subdivisions.<\/p>\n
| Place<\/th>\n | Type<\/th>\n | Pop.<\/th>\n | ZIP<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n |
|---|---|---|---|
| Detroit<\/td>\n | City · seat<\/td>\n | 639,111<\/td>\n | 48226<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Livonia<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | 95,535<\/td>\n | 48150<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Dearborn<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | 109,976<\/td>\n | 48126<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Westland<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | 85,420<\/td>\n | 48185<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Taylor<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | 63,409<\/td>\n | 48180<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Dearborn Heights<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | 63,292<\/td>\n | 48127<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Lincoln Park<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | 40,245<\/td>\n | 48146<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Southgate<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | 30,047<\/td>\n | 48195<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Garden City<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | 27,380<\/td>\n | 48135<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Wyandotte<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | 25,058<\/td>\n | 48192<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Inkster<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | 26,088<\/td>\n | 48141<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Hamtramck<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | 28,433<\/td>\n | 48212<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Allen Park<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | 28,638<\/td>\n | 48101<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Romulus<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | 25,178<\/td>\n | 48174<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Highland Park<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | 8,977<\/td>\n | 48203<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Belleville<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | 4,008<\/td>\n | 48111<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Ecorse<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | 48229<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Flat Rock<\/td>\n | City (partial)<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | 48134<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Gibraltar<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Grosse Pointe<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | 48230<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Grosse Pointe Farms<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Grosse Pointe Park<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Grosse Pointe Shores<\/td>\n | City (partial)<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Grosse Pointe Woods<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Harper Woods<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | 48225<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Melvindale<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | 48122<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Northville<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | 48167<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Plymouth<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | 48170<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| River Rouge<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | 48218<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Riverview<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | 48193<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Rockwood<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | 48173<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Trenton<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | 48183<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Wayne<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | 48184<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Woodhaven<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Canton<\/td>\n | Charter Twp.<\/td>\n | 98,659<\/td>\n | 48187<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Redford<\/td>\n | Charter Twp.<\/td>\n | 49,504<\/td>\n | 48239<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Van Buren<\/td>\n | Charter Twp.<\/td>\n | 30,375<\/td>\n | 48111<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Brownstown<\/td>\n | Charter Twp.<\/td>\n | 33,194<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Plymouth<\/td>\n | Charter Twp.<\/td>\n | 27,938<\/td>\n | 48170<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Huron<\/td>\n | Charter Twp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Northville<\/td>\n | Charter Twp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | 48167<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Grosse Ile<\/td>\n | Civil Twp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | 48138<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Sumpter<\/td>\n | Civil Twp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n Two name pairs on this list repeat across different governments. Plymouth is both an independent city and a separate Plymouth Charter Township surrounding it, and Northville is likewise a city with its own Northville Charter Township next door — each pair shares a ZIP but is governed separately. Van Buren Charter Township surrounds the independent city of Belleville, and residents on the township’s side of the line often use a Belleville mailing address anyway.<\/p>\n Wayne County also has about 20 unincorporated communities with no population figures published separately, since the Census Bureau counts their residents inside the surrounding township: Beech, Belleville North, Cherry Hill, Cherry Island, Denton, East Rockwood, Edgewater Heights, French Landing, Grand View Acres, Maple Beach, Martinsville, Milleville Beach, New Boston (ZIP 48164), Rawsonville (partial), Roulo, Sheldon, Waltz, West Sumpter and Willow.<\/p>\n ZIP Codes<\/h2>\nGibraltar, Woodhaven and the county’s unincorporated communities other than New Boston have no ZIP code of their own; mail there is delivered under a neighboring city’s code.<\/p>\n Geography<\/h2>\nWayne County sits at the southeastern corner of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, where the Detroit River connects Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie. Of its 673 square miles, 612 are land and 61 are water — about 9 percent, well above most Michigan counties, because the county’s entire eastern edge runs along the Detroit River and Lake Erie’s western shore. The Detroit River separates the county from Windsor and LaSalle in Ontario, Canada, and the River Rouge, which gives several Wayne County places their names, cuts through the county’s center before joining the Detroit River at the old Ford Rouge plant.<\/p>\n Oakland County lies to the north, Macomb County to the northeast, Washtenaw County to the west, and Monroe County to the south. Essex County and Lambton County in Ontario, Canada face the county across the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair. Oakland County<\/a>, Macomb County<\/a>, Washtenaw County<\/a> and Monroe County<\/a> all border Wayne directly.<\/p>\n Wayne County had a population of 1,793,561 at the 2020 census, and the most recent estimate puts the county near 1,769,038 residents, a small decline typical of Michigan’s older industrial counties. Detroit and Livonia are by far the two largest communities, together holding well over a third of the county’s population. Median household income runs about $60,539, well below Michigan’s statewide figure of $69,183 (2023 ACS). Population density works out to roughly 2,930 people per square mile of land, the highest of any Michigan county by a wide margin.<\/p>\n Manufacturing employs the most workers in the county, about 134,550 people, followed by health care and social assistance at 115,225 and retail trade at 78,553. General Motors and Stellantis North America (formerly Chrysler) are both headquartered in Detroit, and Ford Motor Company is headquartered just west of the city in Dearborn, giving the county the deepest concentration of automotive corporate offices in the country. Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in Romulus is a Delta Air Lines hub and one of the county’s largest single-site employers. Detroit is also home to Wayne State University and to Henry Ford Health, one of the region’s largest hospital systems, while Ford’s Rouge assembly complex in Dearborn remains a major manufacturing site more than a century after it opened. The Detroit Jazz Festival, the largest free jazz festival in the world, fills downtown Detroit every Labor Day weekend.<\/p>\n Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded a French fort and trading post on the Detroit River on 24 July 1701, the settlement that became Detroit. The Northwest Territory organized Wayne County on 15 August 1796, naming it for General “Mad Anthony” Wayne, whose 1794 victory at Fallen Timbers opened the region to American control; the county was reorganized under Michigan Territory in 1815. In its earliest decades Wayne County’s boundaries stretched across most of what is now Michigan before later counties were split off.<\/p>\n The county was a corridor on the Underground Railroad in the decades before the Civil War, with documented safe houses in Romulus and river crossings into Canada at Detroit. Ford, General Motors and Chrysler built their early plants in and around Detroit in the first decades of the 20th century, and by 1920 Detroit-area automakers produced roughly half the world’s cars. Racial tension over housing and policing erupted into the 1967 Detroit uprising, one of the deadliest civil disturbances in US history, and Detroit filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history in 2013 after decades of population and tax-base decline.<\/p>\n Interstates 75, 94, 96, 275 and 375 all cross Wayne County, converging on Detroit; no other Michigan county carries as many interstate route-miles.<\/p>\n Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, in Romulus, is the county’s major commercial airport and a Delta Air Lines hub. Coleman A. Young International Airport, on Detroit’s east side, and Willow Run Airport, on the county’s western edge, handle general aviation and cargo. Amtrak’s Wolverine line stops at Detroit’s New Center station, connecting to Ann Arbor, Chicago and points east toward Pontiac.<\/p>\n Where is Wayne County located?<\/strong> What is the population of Wayne County?<\/strong> How big is Wayne County?<\/strong> What is the county seat of Wayne County?<\/strong> How many cities and townships are in Wayne County?<\/strong> What ZIP codes does Wayne County use?<\/strong> |