Whitfield County area

Population and density of Whitfield County

The Census Bureau estimates that 106,212 people lived in Whitfield County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #598 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #26 of 159 in Georgia. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 102,870, the population has grown by 3,342 (+3.2%), compared with +5.5% for Georgia as a whole.

With 290.4 square miles of land, that is 366 people per square mile (141 per km²), placing Whitfield County #441 nationally for density and #24 in Georgia. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Georgia median is 69. Put another way, there are about 1.8 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 Whitfield County

4 incorporated places lie at least partly in Whitfield County. Together they are home to 39,486 people (37.2%); the other 66,726 (62.8%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Dalton city, with 35,322 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Varnell city grew fastest since then (+3.3%).

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

Metropolitan area

Whitfield County is a central county of the Dalton, GA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 147,819 residents on 634.9 square miles of land; Whitfield County accounts for 45.7% of the land and 71.9% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #333 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #299 by population. It belongs to the Chattanooga-Cleveland-Dalton, TN-GA-AL Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

8 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Whitfield County; 6 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

3071030720307213073530736307403075530756

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 Whitfield County

Whitfield County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents, including 1 in Tennessee. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Walker County (446.3 mi²) and the smallest is Catoosa County (162.2 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Whitfield County forms a block of 1,928.6 mi² of land, of which it holds 15.1%.

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

Whitfield County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 3.6 times as much. Georgia’s county land could hold about 199 areas the size of Whitfield County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 17 miles (27.4 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 Whitfield County?

Whitfield County has more land than 401 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 Whitfield County at #2,860 nationally by total area, 39 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 0.2%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1 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 Whitfield 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.