Ketchikan Gateway Borough area

Population and density of Ketchikan Gateway Borough

The Census Bureau estimates that 13,549 people lived in Ketchikan Gateway Borough on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,258 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #7 of 30 in Alaska. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 13,954, the population has declined by 405 (−2.9%), compared with +0.5% for Alaska as a whole.

With 4,857.1 square miles of land, that is 2.8 people per square mile (1.1 per km²), placing Ketchikan Gateway Borough #3,000 nationally for density and #7 in Alaska. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Alaska median is 0.73. Put another way, there are about 229 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 Ketchikan Gateway Borough

2 incorporated places lie at least partly in Ketchikan Gateway Borough. Together they are home to 8,315 people (61.4%); the other 5,234 (38.6%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Ketchikan city, with 7,939 residents in the county.

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

Metropolitan area

Ketchikan Gateway Borough is a central county of the Ketchikan, AK Micropolitan Statistical Area. Ketchikan Gateway Borough is the area’s only county equivalent, so the micro area has the same 4,857.1 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #23 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #540 by population.

ZIP codes

1 ZIP Code Tabulation Area has land in Ketchikan Gateway Borough, and it lies mostly inside the county.

99901

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are the Census Bureau’s approximations of USPS ZIP Code service areas, from the 2020 Census relationship files. Post-office-box and single-address ZIP Codes have no tabulation area.

Counties bordering Ketchikan Gateway Borough

Ketchikan Gateway Borough shares a land border with 2 county equivalents. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area (5,268.2 mi²) and the smallest is Wrangell City and Borough (2,556.3 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Ketchikan Gateway Borough forms a block of 12,681.6 mi² of land, of which it holds 38.3%.

How big is Ketchikan Gateway Borough compared with U.S. states?

Ketchikan Gateway Borough has more land than 3 of the 50 states. It is about 1 times the land area of Connecticut (4,842.5 mi²), while Hawaii, the next larger state, has 1.3 times as much land (6,422.6 mi²). Alaska’s county land could hold about 118 areas the size of Ketchikan Gateway Borough.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 69.7 miles (112.2 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 Ketchikan Gateway Borough?

Ketchikan Gateway Borough has more land than 3,138 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 Ketchikan Gateway Borough at #55 nationally by total area, 29 places closer to the top than its land rank. The water assigned to this geography moves it ahead of some county equivalents with more land.

Its water share is 27.3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 26.1 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 Ketchikan Gateway Borough 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.