Kalawao County area

Population and density of Kalawao County

The Census Bureau estimates that 82 people lived in Kalawao County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #3,221 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #5 of 5 in Hawaii. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 80, the population has grown by 2 (+2.5%), compared with −1.5% for Hawaii as a whole.

With 12 square miles of land, that is 6.8 people per square mile (2.6 per km²), placing Kalawao County #2,772 nationally for density and #5 in Hawaii. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Hawaii median is 118. Put another way, there are about 94 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 Kalawao County

Hawaii has no incorporated cities or towns: its counties provide local government directly. Kalawao County’s communities are census-designated places, statistical areas the Census Bureau defines for data purposes.

Metropolitan area

Kalawao County is an outlying county of the Kahului-Wailuku, HI Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 160,674 residents on 1,173.5 square miles of land; Kalawao County accounts for 1% of the land and 0.1% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #263 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #275 by population.

ZIP codes

1 ZIP Code Tabulation Area has land in Kalawao County, and it lies mostly inside the county.

96742

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are the Census Bureau’s approximations of USPS ZIP Code service areas, from the 2020 Census relationship files. Post-office-box and single-address ZIP Codes have no tabulation area.

Counties bordering Kalawao County

Kalawao County shares a land border with 1 county equivalent. Maui County has 96.9 times its land area.

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

Kalawao County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 86 times as much. Hawaii’s county land could hold about 536 areas the size of Kalawao County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 3.46 miles (5.6 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 Kalawao County?

Kalawao County has more land than 22 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 Kalawao County at #3,153 nationally by total area, 47 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 77.3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 76.1 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 Kalawao 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.