McIntosh County area

Population and density of McIntosh County

The Census Bureau estimates that 11,989 people lived in McIntosh County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,352 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #116 of 159 in Georgia. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 10,970, the population has grown by 1,019 (+9.3%), compared with +5.5% for Georgia as a whole.

With 431.3 square miles of land, that is 28 people per square mile (11 per km²), placing McIntosh County #2,070 nationally for density and #128 in Georgia. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Georgia median is 69. Put another way, there are about 23 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 McIntosh County

1 incorporated place lies at least partly in McIntosh County. Together they are home to 1,807 people (15.1%); the other 10,182 (84.9%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Darien city, with 1,807 residents in the county.

Metropolitan area

McIntosh County is an outlying county of the Brunswick-St. Simons, GA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 3 county equivalents have 118,524 residents on 1,294.2 square miles of land; McIntosh County accounts for 33.3% of the land and 10.1% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #242 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #340 by population.

ZIP codes

4 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in McIntosh County; 3 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

31305313233132731331

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 McIntosh County

McIntosh County shares a land border with 4 county equivalents. It has more land than 2 of them. The largest neighbor is Wayne County (641.8 mi²) and the smallest is Long County (400.4 mi²). Together with its neighbors, McIntosh County forms a block of 2,409.6 mi² of land, of which it holds 17.9%.

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

McIntosh County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.4 times as much. Georgia’s county land could hold about 134 areas the size of McIntosh County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 20.8 miles (33.4 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 McIntosh County?

McIntosh County has more land than 868 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 McIntosh County at #1,892 nationally by total area, 462 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 24.8%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 23.7 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 McIntosh 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.