Craighead County area

Population and density of Craighead County

The Census Bureau estimates that 116,957 people lived in Craighead County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #554 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #7 of 75 in Arkansas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 111,242, the population has grown by 5,715 (+5.1%), compared with +3.4% for Arkansas as a whole.

With 707.2 square miles of land, that is 165 people per square mile (64 per km²), placing Craighead County #724 nationally for density and #7 in Arkansas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Arkansas median is 28. Put another way, there are about 3.9 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 Craighead County

10 incorporated places lie at least partly in Craighead County. Together they are home to 98,882 people (84.5%); the other 18,075 (15.5%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Jonesboro city, with 83,296 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Lake City city grew fastest since then (+20.8%).

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

Metropolitan area

Craighead County is a central county of the Jonesboro, AR Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 139,440 residents on 1,465.5 square miles of land; Craighead County accounts for 48.3% of the land and 83.9% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #223 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #309 by population. It belongs to the Jonesboro-Paragould, AR Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

17 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Craighead County; 13 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

7240172404724057241172414724167241772419724217242772437724387244772450724677247672479

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 Craighead County

Craighead County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents, including 1 in Missouri. It has more land than 4 of them. The largest neighbor is Mississippi County (902.1 mi²) and the smallest is Dunklin County (541.9 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Craighead County forms a block of 4,708 mi² of land, of which it holds 15%.

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

Craighead County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.5 times as much. Arkansas’s county land could hold about 74 areas the size of Craighead County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 26.6 miles (42.8 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 Craighead County?

Craighead County has more land than 1,918 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 Craighead County at #1,411 nationally by total area, 107 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 0.8%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.4 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 Craighead 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.