Sumter County area

Population and density of Sumter County

The Census Bureau estimates that 157,772 people lived in Sumter County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #449 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #34 of 67 in Florida. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 129,752, the population has grown by 28,020 (+21.6%), compared with +8.9% for Florida as a whole.

With 557.1 square miles of land, that is 283 people per square mile (109 per km²), placing Sumter County #531 nationally for density and #30 in Florida. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Florida median is 209. Put another way, there are about 2.3 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 Sumter County

5 incorporated places lie at least partly in Sumter County. Together they are home to 25,466 people (16.1%); the other 132,306 (83.9%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Wildwood city, with 19,436 residents in the county. The county seat, Bushnell city, has 3,157 residents. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Wildwood city grew fastest since then (+23%).

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

Metropolitan area

Sumter County is a central county of the Wildwood-The Villages, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area. Sumter County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the metro area has the same 557.1 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #348 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #281 by population. It belongs to the Orlando-Lakeland-Deltona, FL Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

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

321593216232163335133351433521335383358533597344843473134785

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 Sumter County

Sumter County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Polk County (1,798.8 mi²) and the smallest is Hernando County (473 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Sumter County forms a block of 6,700.1 mi² of land, of which it holds 8.3%.

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

Sumter County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.9 times as much. Florida’s county land could hold about 96 areas the size of Sumter County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 23.6 miles (38 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 Sumter County?

Sumter County has more land than 1,361 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 Sumter County at #1,835 nationally by total area, 26 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 3.9%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 2.7 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 Sumter 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.