Ouachita County area

Population and density of Ouachita County

The Census Bureau estimates that 21,731 people lived in Ouachita County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,788 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #29 of 75 in Arkansas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 22,650, the population has declined by 919 (−4.1%), compared with +3.4% for Arkansas as a whole.

With 732.7 square miles of land, that is 30 people per square mile (11 per km²), placing Ouachita County #2,015 nationally for density and #31 in Arkansas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Arkansas median is 28. Put another way, there are about 22 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 Ouachita County

6 incorporated places lie at least partly in Ouachita County. Together they are home to 12,764 people (58.7%); the other 8,967 (41.3%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Camden city, with 10,127 residents in the county.

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

Metropolitan area

Ouachita County is a central county of the Camden, AR Micropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 26,363 residents on 1,361.3 square miles of land; Ouachita County accounts for 53.8% of the land and 82.4% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #125 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #467 by population.

ZIP codes

8 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Ouachita County; 5 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

7170171720717267175171762717637176471857

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 Ouachita County

Ouachita County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. It has more land than 3 of them. The largest neighbor is Union County (1,039.1 mi²) and the smallest is Nevada County (617.8 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Ouachita County forms a block of 5,317.5 mi² of land, of which it holds 13.8%.

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

Ouachita County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.4 times as much. Arkansas’s county land could hold about 71 areas the size of Ouachita County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 27.1 miles (43.6 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 Ouachita County?

Ouachita County has more land than 2,013 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 Ouachita County at #1,305 nationally by total area, 96 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 0.9%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.2 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 Ouachita 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.