Walton County area

Population and density of Walton County

The Census Bureau estimates that 93,288 people lived in Walton County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #662 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #38 of 67 in Florida. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 75,305, the population has grown by 17,983 (+23.9%), compared with +8.9% for Florida as a whole.

With 1,038.4 square miles of land, that is 90 people per square mile (35 per km²), placing Walton County #1,077 nationally for density and #41 in Florida. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Florida median is 209. Put another way, there are about 7.1 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 Walton County

3 incorporated places lie at least partly in Walton County. Together they are home to 15,576 people (16.7%); the other 77,712 (83.3%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Freeport city, with 7,543 residents in the county. The county seat, DeFuniak Springs city, has 7,338 residents. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Freeport city grew fastest since then (+25.6%).

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

Metropolitan area

Walton 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; Walton County accounts for 52.8% of the land and 29.6% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #160 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #169 by population.

ZIP codes

13 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Walton County; 7 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

32413324333243532439324553245932461324623246432539325503256732578

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 Walton County

Walton County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents, including 2 in Alabama. It has more land than every one of them. The largest neighbor is Covington County (1,030.6 mi²) and the smallest is Holmes County (478.9 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Walton County forms a block of 5,395.4 mi² of land, of which it holds 19.2%.

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

Walton County has more land than 1 of the 50 states. It is about 1 times the land area of Rhode Island (1,033.9 mi²), while Delaware, the next larger state, has 1.9 times as much land (1,948.6 mi²). Florida’s county land could hold about 52 areas the size of Walton County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 32.2 miles (51.9 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 Walton County?

Walton County has more land than 2,585 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 Walton County at #488 nationally by total area, 149 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 26.3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 25.2 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 Walton 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.