Lake County area

Population and density of Lake County

The Census Bureau estimates that 7,552 people lived in Lake County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,682 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #41 of 64 in Colorado. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 7,432, the population has grown by 120 (+1.6%), compared with +4.1% for Colorado as a whole.

With 376.9 square miles of land, that is 20 people per square mile (7.7 per km²), placing Lake County #2,325 nationally for density and #25 in Colorado. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Colorado median is 11. Put another way, there are about 32 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 Lake County

1 incorporated place lies at least partly in Lake County. Together they are home to 2,668 people (35.3%); the other 4,884 (64.7%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Leadville city, with 2,668 residents in the county.

Metropolitan area

Lake County is an outlying county of the Breckenridge, CO Micropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 39,069 residents on 985.2 square miles of land; Lake County accounts for 38.3% of the land and 19.3% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #184 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #330 by population.

ZIP codes

2 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Lake County, and each lies mostly inside the county.

8046181251

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are the Census Bureau’s approximations of USPS ZIP Code service areas, from the 2020 Census relationship files. Post-office-box and single-address ZIP Codes have no tabulation area.

Counties bordering Lake County

Lake County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. Each of them has more land than Lake County. The largest neighbor is Park County (2,193.5 mi²) and the smallest is Summit County (608.3 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Lake County forms a block of 6,847.3 mi² of land, of which it holds 5.5%.

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

Lake County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.7 times as much. Colorado’s county land could hold about 275 areas the size of Lake County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 19.4 miles (31.2 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 Lake County?

Lake County has more land than 610 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 Lake County at #2,649 nationally by total area, 37 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 1.8%, 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 Lake 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.