Population in a radius

How many people live within 10 miles of Times Square?

About 7.55 million. The figure is between 6.61 million, counting only the 177 ZIP code areas entirely inside the circle, and 8.41 million, counting in full the 37 the circle cuts through. There are 263 square miles of land inside.

Rings: population within 1, 3 and 5 miles

Choose “Rings” to count several circles around the same center at once, as in retail site studies: the standard 1, 3 and 5 miles (or 1, 5 and 10 km), or up to 6 radii of your own. Around Times Square, 189,000 people live within 1 mile, 1.10 million between 1 and 3 miles, and 1.34 million between 3 and 5 miles: 2.63 million in all. The table gives each band and the cumulative population, each with its range, and the CSV has one row per ring.

The cumulative figure up to a radius is exactly what a circle of that radius gives. A band’s range, though, isn’t the difference of two ranges: ZIP areas entirely inside the band count in full, those cut by either of its two edges carry their range, and the grid’s share gets the range of a circle as wide as the band. We use it in our studies of the population around the 100 largest US cities and Spain’s provincial capitals.

What about the rest of the world?

Outside the US and Spain, the figure comes from the GHS-POP grid, for 2025. About 9.53 million people live within 25 km (16 mi) of Notre-Dame in Paris; 33.2 million within 50 km (31 mi) of Tokyo Station; 10.4 million within 25 km (16 mi) of Lagos Island; and 14.7 million within 25 km (16 mi) of the Zócalo in Mexico City.

When the circle crosses a border, each part is counted with its own data: the US side with Census data, and Canada or Mexico with the grid (the same goes for Spain and its neighbors). The “By country” table shows how much each one adds.

How it’s calculated in the US

The Census Bureau publishes the population of every ZIP Code Tabulation Area (ZCTA), along with its land area and an interior point. The tool treats each ZCTA as a circle of the same land area around that point, works out how much of it falls inside your circle, and counts that share of its population: if 40% of a ZIP area of 10,000 people is inside, it adds 4,000.

That assumes people are spread evenly within each ZIP area, so the tool also gives a range: the low figure counts only ZIP areas entirely inside, the high one counts in full every ZIP area the circle touches. The real population should be somewhere between the two.

How it’s calculated with the grid

GHS-POP, from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), spreads each country’s census population over cells of about 1 × 1 km, according to what’s built in each one (as seen from satellites). The tool adds up the cells inside the circle and, for the cells the edge cuts through, the share that’s inside. To keep it fast, the grid is stored in pieces that only download for the area around your circle; compared with the original grid, the figure moves by less than 1% in 9 out of 10 circles of 1 km, and by almost nothing for bigger ones.

The grid is an estimate, not a head count: checked against Eurostat’s 2021 census grid (which counts people in 1 km cells), it’s off by less than 7% in 8 out of 10 circles of 50 km (31 miles) and by less than 30% in circles of 1 km. That’s the range the tool shows. Where the last census is old (in much of Africa, for example), it can be off by more.

How accurate is it in the US?

The bigger the circle, the smaller the range, because most ZIP areas end up entirely inside or outside. For small circles the range widens: with 2 miles around Times Square, the estimate is 623,000, between 451,000 and 1.05 million. In rural areas, where ZIP areas are large, the estimate is rougher than in cities.

Water inside the circle doesn’t count, only land.

Where the data comes from

In the US, population is the American Community Survey 2020–2024 5-year estimate for each ZCTA; land area and interior points come from the Census Bureau’s 2025 Gazetteer Files. All of it is public domain.

In Spain, it’s the official municipal register from the INE, with municipal boundaries from the IGN; when the circle cuts a municipality, its population is spread with the GHS-POP grid (where the buildings are) instead of by land area, which checked against the 2021 census cuts the median error at 10 km from 22% to 3%. Everywhere else, it’s GHS-POP R2023A, the 2025 estimate (© European Union, JRC, CC BY 4.0), with the country of each cell from Natural Earth.