Calhoun County area

Population and density of Calhoun County

The Census Bureau estimates that 115,834 people lived in Calhoun County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #562 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #11 of 67 in Alabama. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 116,439, the population has declined by 605 (−0.5%), compared with +3.3% for Alabama as a whole.

With 605.9 square miles of land, that is 191 people per square mile (74 per km²), placing Calhoun County #652 nationally for density and #10 in Alabama. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Alabama median is 49. Put another way, there are about 3.3 acres of land per resident.

U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 population estimates. Estimates are revised each year and are not decennial census counts. Density divides the whole population by the whole county’s land area, so it describes an average, not how settlement is distributed within the county. Population sources and methods.

Cities and towns in Calhoun County

9 incorporated places lie at least partly in Calhoun County. Together they are home to 63,165 people (54.5%); the other 52,669 (45.5%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Anniston city, with 20,930 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Ohatchee town grew fastest since then (+2.9%).

Population: U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2025 subcounty estimates, counting only the part of each place inside Calhoun County. Land: 2026 Census Gazetteer, for the whole place even where it extends into other counties. How communities are listed.

Metropolitan area

Calhoun County is a central county of the Anniston-Oxford, AL Metropolitan Statistical Area. Calhoun County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the metro area has the same 605.9 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #336 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #343 by population.

ZIP codes

14 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Calhoun County; 10 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

3509635905362013620336205362063620736250362603626536271362723627736279

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are the Census Bureau’s approximations of USPS ZIP Code service areas, from the 2020 Census relationship files. Lighter codes have less than half of their land in this county. Post-office-box and single-address ZIP Codes have no tabulation area.

Counties bordering Calhoun County

Calhoun County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. It has more land than 3 of them. The largest neighbor is Talladega County (736.8 mi²) and the smallest is Etowah County (535.1 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Calhoun County forms a block of 3,623.2 mi² of land, of which it holds 16.7%.

How big is Calhoun County compared with U.S. states?

Calhoun County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.7 times as much. Alabama’s county land could hold about 84 areas the size of Calhoun County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 24.6 miles (39.6 km) on each side. Real county shapes are rarely square, so this is a scale reference rather than a width or driving distance.

State figures are the sums of each state’s county-equivalent land measurements in the same Census release, so states and counties are compared on the same basis. Published state totals can differ slightly because of rounding. Compare all states · Counties bigger than entire states.

What stands out about Calhoun County?

Calhoun County has more land than 1,616 of the other 3,221 county equivalents in the dataset.

A median is the middle county-equivalent measurement, not the average of the largest and smallest. All three bars use the same linear scale. Very small areas may appear as a thin sliver; the labels retain their values.

Does including water change its rank?

Using land plus water places Calhoun County at #1,705 nationally by total area, 99 places farther from the top than its land rank. Other county equivalents gain more area when their water measurements are included.

Its water share is 1%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.1 percentage points lower. This describes the statistical geography’s land/water mix, not flood exposure or developable land.

Closest positions in the national land ranking

These entries sit immediately beside Calhoun County in the national ranking. They can be in different states and are not necessarily geographic neighbors.

Calculated from the same Census release as the area table. Total-area order uses original ALAND + AWATER; water shares and chart labels use published square miles. Calculation details.