We present charged particle densities as a function of pseudorapidity and collision centrality for the 197Au+197Au reaction at sNN=130 GeV. An integral charged particle multiplicity of 3860±300 is found for the 5% most central events within the pseudorapidity range −4.7⩽η⩽4.7. At mid-rapidity an enhancement in the particle yields per participant nucleon pair is observed for central events. Near to the beam rapidity, a scaling of the particle yields consistent with the “limiting fragmentation” picture is observed. Our results are compared to other recent experimental and theoretical discussions of charged particle densities in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions.