Hernando County area

Population and density of Hernando County

The Census Bureau estimates that 221,701 people lived in Hernando County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #328 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #27 of 67 in Florida. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 194,510, the population has grown by 27,191 (+14%), compared with +8.9% for Florida as a whole.

With 473 square miles of land, that is 469 people per square mile (181 per km²), placing Hernando County #357 nationally for density and #20 in Florida. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Florida median is 209. Put another way, there are about 1.4 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 Hernando County

1 incorporated place lies at least partly in Hernando County. Together they are home to 10,145 people (4.6%); the other 211,556 (95.4%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Brooksville city, with 10,145 residents in the county.

Metropolitan area

Hernando County is an outlying county of the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area, in the Tampa, FL metropolitan division. Its 4 county equivalents have 3,418,895 residents on 2,515.7 square miles of land; Hernando County accounts for 18.8% of the land and 6.5% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #131 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #17 by population.

ZIP codes

12 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Hernando County; 10 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

335233359734601346023460434606346073460834609346133461434661

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 Hernando County

Hernando County shares a land border with 3 county equivalents. Each of them has more land than Hernando County. The largest neighbor is Pasco County (746.7 mi²) and the smallest is Sumter County (557.1 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Hernando County forms a block of 2,358.9 mi² of land, of which it holds 20.1%.

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

Hernando County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.2 times as much. Florida’s county land could hold about 113 areas the size of Hernando County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 21.7 miles (35 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 Hernando County?

Hernando County has more land than 1,041 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 Hernando County at #1,395 nationally by total area, 786 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 33.9%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 32.7 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 Hernando 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.