Santa Cruz County area

Population and density of Santa Cruz County

The Census Bureau estimates that 50,020 people lived in Santa Cruz County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,026 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #12 of 15 in Arizona. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 47,669, the population has grown by 2,351 (+4.9%), compared with +6.5% for Arizona as a whole.

With 1,236.3 square miles of land, that is 40 people per square mile (16 per km²), placing Santa Cruz County #1,744 nationally for density and #5 in Arizona. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Arizona median is 17. Put another way, there are about 16 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 Santa Cruz County

2 incorporated places lie at least partly in Santa Cruz County. Together they are home to 20,266 people (40.5%); the other 29,754 (59.5%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Nogales city, with 19,495 residents in the county.

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

Metropolitan area

Santa Cruz County is a central county of the Nogales, AZ Micropolitan Statistical Area. Santa Cruz County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the micro area has the same 1,236.3 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #141 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #224 by population. It belongs to the Tucson-Nogales, AZ Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

9 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Santa Cruz County; 6 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

856118561485621856248563785640856458564685648

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 Santa Cruz County

Santa Cruz County shares a land border with 2 county equivalents. Each of them has more land than Santa Cruz County. The largest neighbor is Pima County (9,188.7 mi²) and the smallest is Cochise County (6,209.9 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Santa Cruz County forms a block of 16,634.8 mi² of land, of which it holds 7.4%.

How big is Santa Cruz County compared with U.S. states?

Santa Cruz County has more land than 1 of the 50 states. It is about 1.2 times the land area of Rhode Island (1,033.9 mi²), while Delaware, the next larger state, has 1.6 times as much land (1,948.6 mi²). Arizona’s county land could hold about 92 areas the size of Santa Cruz County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 35.2 miles (56.6 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 Santa Cruz County?

Santa Cruz County has more land than 2,728 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 Santa Cruz County at #569 nationally by total area, 75 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 0.1%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1.1 percentage points lower. 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 Santa Cruz County 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.