diff --git a/changes/3103.bugfix.rst b/changes/3103.bugfix.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..93aecce908
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changes/3103.bugfix.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+When creating arrays without explicitly specifying a chunk size using `zarr.create` and other
+array creation routines, the chunk size will now set automatically instead of defaulting to the data shape.
+For large arrays this will result in smaller default chunk sizes.
+To retain previous behaviour, explicitly set the chunk shape to the data shape.
+
+This fix matches the existing chunking behaviour of
+`zarr.save_array` and `zarr.api.asynchronous.AsyncArray.create`.
diff --git a/src/zarr/api/asynchronous.py b/src/zarr/api/asynchronous.py
index aae7d28d15..b262ced29b 100644
--- a/src/zarr/api/asynchronous.py
+++ b/src/zarr/api/asynchronous.py
@@ -992,19 +992,11 @@ async def create(
     )
 
     if zarr_format == 2:
-        if chunks is None:
-            chunks = shape
         dtype = parse_dtype(dtype, zarr_format)
         if not filters:
             filters = _default_filters(dtype)
         if compressor == "auto":
             compressor = _default_compressor(dtype)
-    elif zarr_format == 3 and chunk_shape is None:  # type: ignore[redundant-expr]
-        if chunks is not None:
-            chunk_shape = chunks
-            chunks = None
-        else:
-            chunk_shape = shape
 
     if synchronizer is not None:
         warnings.warn("synchronizer is not yet implemented", RuntimeWarning, stacklevel=2)
diff --git a/src/zarr/core/chunk_grids.py b/src/zarr/core/chunk_grids.py
index d3e40c26ed..b5a581b8a4 100644
--- a/src/zarr/core/chunk_grids.py
+++ b/src/zarr/core/chunk_grids.py
@@ -64,6 +64,9 @@ def _guess_chunks(
     if isinstance(shape, int):
         shape = (shape,)
 
+    if typesize == 0:
+        return shape
+
     ndims = len(shape)
     # require chunks to have non-zero length for all dimensions
     chunks = np.maximum(np.array(shape, dtype="=f8"), 1)
diff --git a/tests/test_api.py b/tests/test_api.py
index 640478e9c1..8cd4ab6b60 100644
--- a/tests/test_api.py
+++ b/tests/test_api.py
@@ -1301,3 +1301,41 @@ def test_no_overwrite_load(tmp_path: Path) -> None:
     with contextlib.suppress(NotImplementedError):
         zarr.load(store)
     assert existing_fpath.exists()
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize(
+    "f",
+    [
+        zarr.array,
+        zarr.create,
+        zarr.create_array,
+        zarr.ones,
+        zarr.ones_like,
+        zarr.empty,
+        zarr.empty_like,
+        zarr.full,
+        zarr.full_like,
+        zarr.zeros,
+        zarr.zeros_like,
+    ],
+)
+def test_auto_chunks(f: Callable[..., Array]) -> None:
+    # Make sure chunks are set automatically across the public API
+    # TODO: test shards with this test too
+    shape = (1000, 1000)
+    dtype = np.uint8
+    kwargs = {"shape": shape, "dtype": dtype}
+    array = np.zeros(shape, dtype=dtype)
+    store = zarr.storage.MemoryStore()
+
+    if f in [zarr.full, zarr.full_like]:
+        kwargs["fill_value"] = 0
+    if f in [zarr.array]:
+        kwargs["data"] = array
+    if f in [zarr.empty_like, zarr.full_like, zarr.empty_like, zarr.ones_like, zarr.zeros_like]:
+        kwargs["a"] = array
+    if f in [zarr.create_array]:
+        kwargs["store"] = store
+
+    a = f(**kwargs)
+    assert a.chunks == (500, 500)