53033 FipsDecoder
Independent city — not a county. Washington County has its own 5-digit FIPS code and appears as a county equivalent in federal datasets. It is administratively separate from any surrounding county.
44009 County FIPS Code

Washington County

Rhode Island · County seat: South Kingstown · Independent city (not a county)

View on CensusDepth ↗

FIPS code 44009 is Washington County, Rhode Island. With a population of 129,998 (2022 ACS estimate), it ranks #3 in Rhode Island and #493 nationally. Washington County is part of the Providence-Warwick, RI-MA. The state FIPS code for Rhode Island is 44. This code is used in Census Bureau, BLS, EPA, HUD, and USDA federal datasets to identify this county.

County FIPS

44009

State FIPS

44

RI

Population

129,998

2022 ACS · #493 nationally

Density

394.8/mi²

people per sq mile

Land Area

329

sq miles

Urban/Rural

Metro — 1M+ population

RUCC 1

How This FIPS Code Works

44 009
44 = State FIPS (Rhode Island)
009 = County FIPS

The 5-digit FIPS code 44009 is formed by combining the 2-digit state identifier 44 (Rhode Island) with the 3-digit county identifier 009. Together they uniquely identify Washington County in every US federal dataset. No two counties share the same 5-digit FIPS code.

Census ACS Data for FIPS 44009

From the 2022 ACS 5-year estimates — the same values you'd retrieve by querying the Census API with county FIPS 44009.

Median Household Income

$99,510

ACS B19013_001E

Poverty Rate

7.9%

ACS B17001 (below poverty level)

Median Age

44.9

ACS B01002_001E

Metropolitan Area

Adjacent Counties (4)

Counties that share a border with Washington County. Useful for regional analysis — these are the geographies you'd typically include when studying labor markets, commuting zones, or environmental spillovers around FIPS 44009.

Federal Datasets Using Code 44009

FIPS code 44009 appears as the county identifier in the following federal datasets. Analysts joining data across these sources use this code as the common geographic key.

Using FIPS Code 44009 in Code

Common patterns for querying federal datasets by this county's FIPS code. The leading zeros are significant — always treat FIPS codes as strings, not integers.

Census ACS API — Python 44009
import requests

url = "https://api.census.gov/data/2022/acs/acs5"
params = {
    "get":  "NAME,B19013_001E,B01003_001E",
    "for":  "county:009",
    "in":   "state:44",
    "key":  "YOUR_CENSUS_API_KEY",
}
r = requests.get(url, params=params)
data = r.json()  # [[header...], [Washington County, Rhode Island, income, pop, ...]
SQL — filtering by county FIPS 44009
-- 5-digit combined FIPS (state + county)
SELECT * FROM your_table WHERE county_fips = '44009';

-- Some datasets store state and county separately
SELECT * FROM your_table
WHERE state_fips = '44'
  AND county_fips = '009';

-- ⚠ Never cast to integer — leading zeros are lost:
-- county_fips = 44009 is WRONG for this county
R — tidycensus 44009
library(tidycensus)

get_acs(
  geography = "county",
  variables = c(income = "B19013_001E", pop = "B01003_001E"),
  state     = "44",
  county    = "009",
  year      = 2022
)
Zero-padding reminder: FIPS codes must always be stored and compared as zero-padded strings. 44 (not 44) and 009 (not 9) — losing the leading zeros is one of the most common data-join bugs in federal datasets. Full guide →

ZIP Codes in Washington County

ZIP codes do not align perfectly with county boundaries — a single ZIP code can span multiple counties, and a county can contain parts of many ZIP codes. The ratios below (from the Census 2020 ZCTA relationship file) show the land area share of each ZCTA that falls within Washington County. Why FIPS ≠ ZIP →

ZIP Code % in county
02804 100.0%
02807 100.0%
02808 100.0%
02812 100.0%
02813 100.0%
02822 100.0%
02832 100.0%
02833 100.0%
02836 100.0%
02852 100.0%
02873 100.0%
02874 100.0%
02875 100.0%
02879 100.0%
02881 100.0%
02882 100.0%
02891 100.0%
02892 100.0%
02894 100.0%
02898 100.0%

Other Counties in Rhode Island