Nome Census Area area

Population and density of Nome Census Area

The Census Bureau estimates that 9,830 people lived in Nome Census Area on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,495 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #10 of 30 in Alaska. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 10,046, the population has declined by 216 (−2.2%), compared with +0.5% for Alaska as a whole.

With 22,969.9 square miles of land, that is 0.43 people per square mile (0.17 per km²), placing Nome Census Area #3,202 nationally for density and #20 in Alaska. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Alaska median is 0.73. Put another way, there are about 1,495 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 Nome Census Area

16 incorporated places lie at least partly in Nome Census Area. Together they are home to 9,574 people (97.4%); the other 256 (2.6%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Nome city, with 3,653 residents in the county. By land, Stebbins city is the largest at 32.6 mi².

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

Metropolitan area

Nome Census Area 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 Nome Census Area, and each lies mostly inside the county.

9965999671996849973999742997539976299769997719977299778997839978499785

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 Nome Census Area

Nome Census Area shares a land border with 3 county equivalents. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area (145,767.5 mi²) and the smallest is Kusilvak Census Area (17,151.5 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Nome Census Area forms a block of 221,561.3 mi² of land, of which it holds 10.4%.

How big is Nome Census Area compared with U.S. states?

Nome Census Area has more land than 9 of the 50 states. It is about 2.4 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 25 areas the size of Nome Census Area.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 151.6 miles (243.9 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 Nome Census Area?

Nome Census Area has more land than 3,213 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 Nome Census Area at #6 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 18.8%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 17.6 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 Nome Census Area 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.