Matanuska-Susitna Borough area

Population and density of Matanuska-Susitna Borough

The Census Bureau estimates that 118,666 people lived in Matanuska-Susitna Borough on July 1, 2025. That ranks #548 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #2 of 30 in Alaska. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 107,073, the population has grown by 11,593 (+10.8%), compared with +0.5% for Alaska as a whole.

With 24,703 square miles of land, that is 4.8 people per square mile (1.9 per km²), placing Matanuska-Susitna Borough #2,861 nationally for density and #4 in Alaska. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Alaska median is 0.73. Put another way, there are about 133 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 Matanuska-Susitna Borough

3 incorporated places lie at least partly in Matanuska-Susitna Borough. Together they are home to 19,533 people (16.5%); the other 99,133 (83.5%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Wasilla city, with 10,556 residents in the county. The county seat, Palmer city, has 6,710 residents. By land, Houston city is the largest at 23.9 mi². Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Wasilla city grew fastest since then (+16.5%).

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

Metropolitan area

Matanuska-Susitna Borough is an outlying county of the Anchorage, AK Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 405,821 residents on 26,409.8 square miles of land; Matanuska-Susitna Borough accounts for 93.5% of the land and 29.2% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #2 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #139 by population.

ZIP codes

12 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Matanuska-Susitna Borough; 11 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

995889962399645996529965499667996749967699683996889969499729

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 Matanuska-Susitna Borough

Matanuska-Susitna Borough shares a land border with 8 county equivalents. It has more land than 5 of them. The largest neighbor is Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area (145,767.5 mi²) and the smallest is Anchorage Municipality (1,706.8 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Matanuska-Susitna Borough forms a block of 300,550.3 mi² of land, of which it holds 8.2%.

How big is Matanuska-Susitna Borough compared with U.S. states?

Matanuska-Susitna Borough has more land than 10 of the 50 states. It is about 1 times the land area of West Virginia (24,041.4 mi²), while South Carolina, the next larger state, has 1.2 times as much land (30,064.2 mi²). Alaska’s county land could hold about 23 areas the size of Matanuska-Susitna Borough.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 157.2 miles (252.9 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 Matanuska-Susitna Borough?

Matanuska-Susitna Borough has more land than 3,216 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 Matanuska-Susitna Borough at #7 nationally by total area, 1 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 2.2%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1.1 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 Matanuska-Susitna 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.