Cleveland County area

Population and density of Cleveland County

The Census Bureau estimates that 7,224 people lived in Cleveland County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,718 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #69 of 75 in Arkansas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 7,549, the population has declined by 325 (−4.3%), compared with +3.4% for Arkansas as a whole.

With 597.9 square miles of land, that is 12 people per square mile (4.7 per km²), placing Cleveland County #2,576 nationally for density and #66 in Arkansas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Arkansas median is 28. Put another way, there are about 53 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 Cleveland County

2 incorporated places lie at least partly in Cleveland County. Together they are home to 1,249 people (17.3%); the other 5,975 (82.7%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Rison city, with 917 residents in the county.

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

Metropolitan area

Cleveland County is an outlying county of the Pine Bluff, AR Micropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 70,211 residents on 1,470.3 square miles of land; Cleveland County accounts for 40.7% of the land and 10.3% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #115 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #112 by population. It belongs to the Little Rock-North Little Rock, AR Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

7 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Cleveland County; 3 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

71603716527166071665716677167171725

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 Cleveland County

Cleveland County shares a land border with 7 county equivalents. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Jefferson County (872.3 mi²) and the smallest is Lincoln County (559.5 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Cleveland County forms a block of 5,435.4 mi² of land, of which it holds 11%.

How big is Cleveland County compared with U.S. states?

Cleveland County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.7 times as much. Arkansas’s county land could hold about 87 areas the size of Cleveland County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 24.5 miles (39.4 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 Cleveland County?

Cleveland County has more land than 1,589 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 Cleveland County at #1,749 nationally by total area, 116 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 0.2%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 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 Cleveland 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.