Newport County is one of five counties located in the U.S. state of Rhode Island. As of the 2020 census, the population was 85,643. It is also one of the seven regions of Rhode Island. The county was created in 1703. Like all of the counties in Rhode Island, Newport County no longer has any governmental functions. All of those functions in Rhode Island are now carried out either by the state government, or by the cities and towns of Rhode Island. Newport County is included in the Providence-Warwick, RI-MA Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is in turn constitutes a portion of the greater Boston-Worcester-Providence, MA-RI-NH-CT Combined Statistical Area.

The Providence metropolitan area is a region extending into eight counties in two states. Its core is in the states of Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and it is the 38th largest metropolitan area in the United States. The largest city in the Providence MSA is Providence, Rhode Island, with an estimated population of 1,622,520, exceeding that of Rhode Island by slightly over 60%. The MSA covers all of Rhode Island and Bristol County, Massachusetts, with an average population density of 2300 per mi2.