Okaloosa County area

Population and density of Okaloosa County

The Census Bureau estimates that 221,810 people lived in Okaloosa County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #325 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #26 of 67 in Florida. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 211,667, the population has grown by 10,143 (+4.8%), compared with +8.9% for Florida as a whole.

With 929.8 square miles of land, that is 239 people per square mile (92 per km²), placing Okaloosa County #588 nationally for density and #33 in Florida. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Florida median is 209. Put another way, there are about 2.7 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 Okaloosa County

9 incorporated places lie at least partly in Okaloosa County. Together they are home to 95,067 people (42.9%); the other 126,743 (57.1%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Crestview city, with 31,193 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Crestview city grew fastest since then (+13.8%).

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

Metropolitan area

Okaloosa County is a central county of the Crestview-Fort Walton Beach-Destin, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 315,098 residents on 1,968.2 square miles of land; Okaloosa County accounts for 47.2% of the land and 70.4% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #160 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #169 by population.

ZIP codes

14 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Okaloosa County; 13 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

3253132536325393254132542325443254732548325643256732569325783257932580

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 Okaloosa County

Okaloosa County shares a land border with 4 county equivalents, including 2 in Alabama. Each of them has more land than Okaloosa County. The largest neighbor is Walton County (1,038.4 mi²) and the smallest is Escambia County (945.4 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Okaloosa County forms a block of 4,956.5 mi² of land, of which it holds 18.8%.

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

Okaloosa County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.1 times as much. Florida’s county land could hold about 58 areas the size of Okaloosa County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 30.5 miles (49.1 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 Okaloosa County?

Okaloosa County has more land than 2,447 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 Okaloosa County at #561 nationally by total area, 214 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 25.4%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 24.3 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 Okaloosa 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.