Bay County area

Population and density of Bay County

The Census Bureau estimates that 204,479 people lived in Bay County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #354 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #30 of 67 in Florida. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 175,226, the population has grown by 29,253 (+16.7%), compared with +8.9% for Florida as a whole.

With 758.6 square miles of land, that is 270 people per square mile (104 per km²), placing Bay County #548 nationally for density and #32 in Florida. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Florida median is 209. Put another way, there are about 2.4 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 Bay County

7 incorporated places lie at least partly in Bay County. Together they are home to 109,687 people (53.6%); the other 94,792 (46.4%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Panama City city, with 37,806 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Parker city grew fastest since then (+20.6%).

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

Metropolitan area

Bay County is a central county of the Panama City-Panama City Beach, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 231,174 residents on 1,343.3 square miles of land; Bay County accounts for 56.5% of the land and 88.5% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #239 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #211 by population.

ZIP codes

16 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Bay County; 12 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

32401324033240432405324073240832409324103241332428324373243832444324563246232466

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 Bay County

Bay County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. It has more land than 3 of them. The largest neighbor is Walton County (1,038.4 mi²) and the smallest is Gulf County (553.5 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Bay County forms a block of 4,420.8 mi² of land, of which it holds 17.2%.

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

Bay 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. Florida’s county land could hold about 71 areas the size of Bay County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 27.5 miles (44.3 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 Bay County?

Bay County has more land than 2,067 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 Bay County at #463 nationally by total area, 692 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 48.3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 47.1 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 Bay 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.