Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area area

Population and density of Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area

The Census Bureau estimates that 5,028 people lived in Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,890 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #18 of 30 in Alaska. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 5,344, the population has declined by 316 (−5.9%), compared with +0.5% for Alaska as a whole.

With 145,767.5 square miles of land, that is 0.034 people per square mile (0.013 per km²), placing Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area #3,222 nationally for density and #30 in Alaska. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Alaska median is 0.73. Put another way, there are about 18,554 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 Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area

18 incorporated places lie at least partly in Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area. Together they are home to 3,463 people (68.9%); the other 1,565 (31.1%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Galena city, with 450 residents in the county. By land, McGrath city is the largest at 43.2 mi².

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

Metropolitan area

Yukon-Koyukuk 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

33 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area; 32 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

995589959099602996279966599675996919970199720997229972499726997309973399738997409974199745997469974899754997569975799758997609976599767997689977499777997819978899790

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 Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area

Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area shares a land border with 9 county equivalents. It has more land than every one of them. The largest neighbor is North Slope Borough (88,797.6 mi²) and the smallest is Fairbanks North Star Borough (7,334.7 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area forms a block of 420,531.9 mi² of land, of which it holds 34.7%.

How big is Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area compared with U.S. states?

Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area has more land than 47 of the 50 states. It is about 1 times the land area of Montana (145,550.3 mi²), while California, the next larger state, has 1.1 times as much land (155,860.4 mi²). Alaska’s county land could hold about 3.9 areas the size of Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 381.8 miles (614.4 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 Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area?

Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area has more land than 3,221 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 Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area at #1 nationally by total area, the same position as its land rank. Changing the area definition does not change its position in this release.

Its water share is 1.4%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.3 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 Yukon-Koyukuk 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.