Dawson County area

Population and density of Dawson County

The Census Bureau estimates that 35,365 people lived in Dawson County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,335 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #57 of 159 in Georgia. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 26,797, the population has grown by 8,568 (+32%), compared with +5.5% for Georgia as a whole.

With 210.8 square miles of land, that is 168 people per square mile (65 per km²), placing Dawson County #716 nationally for density and #41 in Georgia. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Georgia median is 69. Put another way, there are about 3.8 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 Dawson County

1 incorporated place lies at least partly in Dawson County. Together they are home to 4,888 people (13.8%); the other 30,477 (86.2%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Dawsonville city, with 4,888 residents in the county.

Metropolitan area

Dawson County is a central county of the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA Metropolitan Statistical Area, in the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA metropolitan division. Its 29 county equivalents have 6,482,182 residents on 8,784.1 square miles of land; Dawson County accounts for 2.4% of the land and 0.5% 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

5 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Dawson County; 2 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

3014330148305333053430536

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 Dawson County

Dawson County shares a land border with 7 county equivalents. Each of them has more land than Dawson County. The largest neighbor is Gilmer County (426.2 mi²) and the smallest is Forsyth County (224.6 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Dawson County forms a block of 2,575.7 mi² of land, of which it holds 8.2%.

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

Dawson County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 4.9 times as much. Georgia’s county land could hold about 274 areas the size of Dawson County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 14.5 miles (23.4 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 Dawson County?

Dawson County has more land than 241 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 Dawson County at #3,003 nationally by total area, 22 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 1.7%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.5 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 Dawson 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.