Yell County area

Population and density of Yell County

The Census Bureau estimates that 19,956 people lived in Yell County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,886 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #33 of 75 in Arkansas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 20,262, the population has declined by 306 (−1.5%), compared with +3.4% for Arkansas as a whole.

With 930.4 square miles of land, that is 21 people per square mile (8.3 per km²), placing Yell County #2,272 nationally for density and #50 in Arkansas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Arkansas median is 28. Put another way, there are about 30 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 Yell County

7 incorporated places lie at least partly in Yell County. Together they are home to 8,444 people (42.3%); the other 11,512 (57.7%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Dardanelle city, with 4,521 residents in the county. By land, Danville city is the largest at 4.28 mi². Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Dardanelle city grew fastest since then (+0.1%).

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

Metropolitan area

Yell County is an outlying county of the Russellville, AR Micropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 84,932 residents on 1,741.3 square miles of land; Yell County accounts for 53.4% of the land and 23.5% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #91 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #60 by population.

ZIP codes

14 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Yell County; 11 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

7202572824728277282872829728337283472838728417284272853728577286072943

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 Yell County

Yell County shares a land border with 7 county equivalents. It has more land than every one of them. The largest neighbor is Scott County (892.9 mi²) and the smallest is Perry County (551.3 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Yell County forms a block of 5,904.7 mi² of land, of which it holds 15.8%.

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

Yell County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.1 times as much. Arkansas’s county land could hold about 56 areas the size of Yell County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 30.5 miles (49.1 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 Yell County?

Yell County has more land than 2,448 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 Yell County at #849 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 1.9%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.7 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 Yell 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.