Coastal Demographics
The entire population of Rhode Island—1.1 million people—lives in coastal portions of the state.
Coastal Economy
Rhode Island’s coastal economy employs more than 467,000 people annually, earning a total of $24.4 billion. This equates to $59.3 billion in gross domestic product.
Natural Hazards
Two billion-dollar weather disaster affected Rhode Island in 2018—and a total of eight affected the state between 2010 and 2018. The most expensive of these was Hurricane Sandy, which caused a total of $72.8 billion in damages to Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island. *
![Rhode Island graphic](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20210120020232im_/https://coast.noaa.gov/data/nationalfacts/img/fast-fact-rhode-island.png)