Manatee County area

Population and density of Manatee County

The Census Bureau estimates that 468,200 people lived in Manatee County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #158 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #16 of 67 in Florida. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 399,711, the population has grown by 68,489 (+17.1%), compared with +8.9% for Florida as a whole.

With 742.8 square miles of land, that is 630 people per square mile (243 per km²), placing Manatee County #278 nationally for density and #14 in Florida. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Florida median is 209. Put another way, there are about 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 Manatee County

6 incorporated places lie at least partly in Manatee County. Together they are home to 79,272 people (16.9%); the other 388,928 (83.1%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Bradenton city, with 58,014 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Bradenton city grew fastest since then (+4.1%).

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

Metropolitan area

Manatee County is a central county of the North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 948,158 residents on 1,298.9 square miles of land; Manatee County accounts for 57.2% of the land and 49.4% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #241 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #62 by population. It belongs to the North Port-Bradenton, FL Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

22 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Manatee County; 19 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

33598342013420234203342053420734208342093421034211342123421534216342173421934221342223422834240342433425034251

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 Manatee County

Manatee County shares a land border with 4 county equivalents. It has more land than 3 of them. The largest neighbor is Hillsborough County (1,022.2 mi²) and the smallest is Sarasota County (556.1 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Manatee County forms a block of 3,595.3 mi² of land, of which it holds 20.7%.

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

Manatee 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 72 areas the size of Manatee County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 27.3 miles (43.9 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 Manatee County?

Manatee County has more land than 2,035 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 Manatee County at #821 nationally by total area, 366 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 23.3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 22.2 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 Manatee 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.