Bartow County area

Population and density of Bartow County

The Census Bureau estimates that 120,800 people lived in Bartow County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #542 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #24 of 159 in Georgia. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 108,872, the population has grown by 11,928 (+11%), compared with +5.5% for Georgia as a whole.

With 458.9 square miles of land, that is 263 people per square mile (102 per km²), placing Bartow County #555 nationally for density and #29 in Georgia. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Georgia median is 69. Put another way, there are about 2.4 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 Bartow County

7 incorporated places lie at least partly in Bartow County. Together they are home to 38,959 people (32.3%); the other 81,841 (67.7%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Cartersville city, with 25,349 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Emerson city grew fastest since then (+55.3%).

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

Metropolitan area

Bartow County is an outlying county of the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA Metropolitan Statistical Area, in the Marietta, GA metropolitan division. Its 29 county equivalents have 6,482,182 residents on 8,784.1 square miles of land; Bartow County accounts for 5.2% of the land and 1.9% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #10 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #6 by population. It belongs to the Atlanta--Athens-Clarke County--Sandy Springs, GA-AL Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

14 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Bartow County; 8 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

3010130102301033010430120301213013730139301453016130171301783018330184

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 Bartow County

Bartow County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. It has more land than 5 of them. The largest neighbor is Floyd County (509.8 mi²) and the smallest is Polk County (310.3 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Bartow County forms a block of 2,708.6 mi² of land, of which it holds 16.9%.

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

Bartow County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.3 times as much. Georgia’s county land could hold about 126 areas the size of Bartow County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 21.4 miles (34.5 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 Bartow County?

Bartow County has more land than 993 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 Bartow County at #2,286 nationally by total area, 57 places farther from the top than its land rank. Other county equivalents gain more area when their water measurements are included.

Its water share is 2.3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1.1 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 Bartow 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.