Alachua County area

Population and density of Alachua County

The Census Bureau estimates that 290,028 people lived in Alachua County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #253 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #24 of 67 in Florida. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 278,478, the population has grown by 11,550 (+4.1%), compared with +8.9% for Florida as a whole.

With 875.7 square miles of land, that is 331 people per square mile (128 per km²), placing Alachua County #471 nationally for density and #25 in Florida. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Florida median is 209. Put another way, there are about 1.9 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 Alachua County

9 incorporated places lie at least partly in Alachua County. Together they are home to 179,117 people (61.8%); the other 110,911 (38.2%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Gainesville city, with 148,671 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Newberry city grew fastest since then (+17.3%).

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

Metropolitan area

Alachua County is a central county of the Gainesville, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 3 county equivalents have 359,036 residents on 2,343.6 square miles of land; Alachua County accounts for 37.4% of the land and 80.8% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #140 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #158 by population. It belongs to the Gainesville-Lake City, FL Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

24 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Alachua County; 21 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

320443260132603326053260632607326083260932610326123261532616326183262232631326403264132643326533265832666326673266932694

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 Alachua County

Alachua County shares a land border with 7 county equivalents. It has more land than 5 of them. The largest neighbor is Marion County (1,588.4 mi²) and the smallest is Union County (243.9 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Alachua County forms a block of 5,995.7 mi² of land, of which it holds 14.6%.

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

Alachua County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.2 times as much. Florida’s county land could hold about 61 areas the size of Alachua County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 29.6 miles (47.6 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 Alachua County?

Alachua County has more land than 2,296 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 Alachua County at #822 nationally by total area, 104 places closer to the top than its land rank. The water assigned to this geography moves it ahead of some county equivalents with more land.

Its water share is 9.6%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 8.4 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 Alachua 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.