Etowah County area

Population and density of Etowah County

The Census Bureau estimates that 103,886 people lived in Etowah County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #611 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #13 of 67 in Alabama. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 103,423, the population has grown by 463 (+0.4%), compared with +3.3% for Alabama as a whole.

With 535.1 square miles of land, that is 194 people per square mile (75 per km²), placing Etowah County #649 nationally for density and #9 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 Etowah County

12 incorporated places lie at least partly in Etowah County. Together they are home to 74,505 people (71.7%); the other 29,381 (28.3%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Gadsden city, with 33,367 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Hokes Bluff city grew fastest since then (+6.2%).

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

Metropolitan area

Etowah County is a central county of the Gadsden, AL Metropolitan Statistical Area. Etowah County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the metro area has the same 535.1 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #351 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #362 by population.

ZIP codes

15 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Etowah County; 11 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

351213590135903359043590535906359073595235954359563596135972359903627136272

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 Etowah County

Etowah County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. Each of them has more land than Etowah County. The largest neighbor is DeKalb County (777.1 mi²) and the smallest is Cherokee County (553.6 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Etowah County forms a block of 4,314.2 mi² of land, of which it holds 12.4%.

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

Etowah County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.9 times as much. Alabama’s county land could hold about 95 areas the size of Etowah County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 23.1 miles (37.2 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 Etowah County?

Etowah County has more land than 1,270 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 Etowah County at #2,009 nationally by total area, 57 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 2.5%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1.3 percentage points higher. 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 Etowah 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.