Lake and Peninsula Borough area

Population and density of Lake and Peninsula Borough

The Census Bureau estimates that 1,357 people lived in Lake and Peninsula Borough on July 1, 2025. That ranks #3,166 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #27 of 30 in Alaska. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 1,472, the population has declined by 115 (−7.8%), compared with +0.5% for Alaska as a whole.

With 23,896.5 square miles of land, that is 0.057 people per square mile (0.022 per km²), placing Lake and Peninsula Borough #3,221 nationally for density and #29 in Alaska. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Alaska median is 0.73. Put another way, there are about 11,270 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 Lake and Peninsula Borough

6 incorporated places lie at least partly in Lake and Peninsula Borough. Together they are home to 553 people (40.8%); the other 804 (59.2%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Newhalen city, with 154 residents in the county. By land, Port Heiden city is the largest at 46.2 mi².

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

Metropolitan area

Lake and Peninsula Borough is not part of any metropolitan or micropolitan statistical area in the Office of Management and Budget’s July 2023 delineation; 1,306 other county equivalents are also outside one. These areas are built around an urban core of at least 10,000 people plus the counties tied to it by commuting, so counties outside them are generally rural.

ZIP codes

14 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Lake and Peninsula Borough, and each lies mostly inside the county.

9954899549995649956599579996069961399625996409964799648996499965399695

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 Lake and Peninsula Borough

Lake and Peninsula Borough shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. It has more land than 5 of them. The largest neighbor is Bethel Census Area (40,654.9 mi²) and the smallest is Bristol Bay Borough (481.4 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Lake and Peninsula Borough forms a block of 113,080.8 mi² of land, of which it holds 21.1%.

How big is Lake and Peninsula Borough compared with U.S. states?

Lake and Peninsula Borough has more land than 9 of the 50 states. It is about 2.5 times the land area of Maryland (9,711 mi²), while West Virginia, the next larger state, has 1 times as much land (24,041.4 mi²). Alaska’s county land could hold about 24 areas the size of Lake and Peninsula Borough.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 154.6 miles (248.8 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 Lake and Peninsula Borough?

Lake and Peninsula Borough has more land than 3,214 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 Lake and Peninsula Borough at #5 nationally by total area, 3 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 29.3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 28.2 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 Lake and Peninsula 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.