Bonner County area

Population and density of Bonner County

The Census Bureau estimates that 54,420 people lived in Bonner County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #969 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #8 of 44 in Idaho. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 47,114, the population has grown by 7,306 (+15.5%), compared with +10.4% for Idaho as a whole.

With 1,733.2 square miles of land, that is 31 people per square mile (12 per km²), placing Bonner County #1,965 nationally for density and #14 in Idaho. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Idaho median is 10. Put another way, there are about 20 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 Bonner County

9 incorporated places lie at least partly in Bonner County. Together they are home to 17,976 people (33%); the other 36,444 (67%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Sandpoint city, with 10,645 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Ponderay city grew fastest since then (+56.2%).

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

Metropolitan area

Bonner County is a central county of the Sandpoint, ID Micropolitan Statistical Area. Bonner County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the micro area has the same 1,733.2 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #93 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #197 by population.

ZIP codes

18 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Bonner County; 16 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

838018380383804838098381183813838218382283825838368384083841838488385283856838608386483869

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 Bonner County

Bonner County shares a land border with 7 county equivalents, including 4 in Washington and Montana. It has more land than 3 of them. The largest neighbor is Lincoln County (3,612.6 mi²) and the smallest is Kootenai County (1,237.8 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Bonner County forms a block of 16,414.7 mi² of land, of which it holds 10.6%.

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

Bonner County has more land than 1 of the 50 states. It is about 1.7 times the land area of Rhode Island (1,033.9 mi²), while Delaware, the next larger state, has 1.1 times as much land (1,948.6 mi²). Idaho’s county land could hold about 48 areas the size of Bonner County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 41.6 miles (67 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 Bonner County?

Bonner County has more land than 2,878 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 Bonner County at #335 nationally by total area, 9 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 9.6%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 8.5 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 Bonner 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.