Madera County area

Population and density of Madera County

The Census Bureau estimates that 167,927 people lived in Madera County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #423 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #32 of 58 in California. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 156,258, the population has grown by 11,669 (+7.5%), compared with −0.5% for California as a whole.

With 2,136.7 square miles of land, that is 79 people per square mile (30 per km²), placing Madera County #1,174 nationally for density and #35 in California. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the California median is 112. Put another way, there are about 8.1 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 Madera County

2 incorporated places lie at least partly in Madera County. Together they are home to 87,747 people (52.3%); the other 80,180 (47.7%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Madera city, with 69,017 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Madera city grew fastest since then (+4%).

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

Metropolitan area

Madera County is an outlying county of the Fresno, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 1,203,383 residents on 8,095.3 square miles of land; Madera County accounts for 26.4% of the land and 14% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #17 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #48 by population. It belongs to the Fresno-Hanford-Corcoran, CA Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

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

936019360293604936109361493620936229362393626936369363793638936439364493645936539366993720

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 Madera County

Madera County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. It has more land than 2 of them. The largest neighbor is Fresno County (5,958.6 mi²) and the smallest is Mariposa County (1,448.8 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Madera County forms a block of 16,752 mi² of land, of which it holds 12.8%.

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

Madera County has more land than 2 of the 50 states. It is about 1.1 times the land area of Delaware (1,948.6 mi²), while Connecticut, the next larger state, has 2.3 times as much land (4,842.5 mi²). California’s county land could hold about 73 areas the size of Madera County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 46.2 miles (74.4 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 Madera County?

Madera County has more land than 2,962 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 Madera County at #292 nationally by total area, 32 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 Madera 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.