Ware County area

Population and density of Ware County

The Census Bureau estimates that 36,906 people lived in Ware County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,300 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #55 of 159 in Georgia. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 36,249, the population has grown by 657 (+1.8%), compared with +5.5% for Georgia as a whole.

With 899.4 square miles of land, that is 41 people per square mile (16 per km²), placing Ware County #1,731 nationally for density and #105 in Georgia. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Georgia median is 69. Put another way, there are about 16 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 Ware County

1 incorporated place lies at least partly in Ware County. Together they are home to 13,928 people (37.7%); the other 22,978 (62.3%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Waycross city, with 13,928 residents in the county (the city extends into 1 other county).

Metropolitan area

Ware County is a central county of the Waycross, GA Micropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 57,670 residents on 1,239.8 square miles of land; Ware County accounts for 72.5% of the land and 64% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #140 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #177 by population.

ZIP codes

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

3150131503315503155231554315643162431631

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 Ware County

Ware County shares a land border with 8 county equivalents, including 1 in Florida. It has more land than every one of them. The largest neighbor is Clinch County (815 mi²) and the smallest is Bacon County (284.1 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Ware County forms a block of 5,082.5 mi² of land, of which it holds 17.7%.

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

Ware County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.1 times as much. Georgia’s county land could hold about 64 areas the size of Ware County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 30 miles (48.3 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 Ware County?

Ware County has more land than 2,362 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 Ware County at #937 nationally by total area, 77 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%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.2 percentage points lower. 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 Ware 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.