Nez Perce County area

Population and density of Nez Perce County

The Census Bureau estimates that 42,905 people lived in Nez Perce County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,156 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #10 of 44 in Idaho. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 42,089, the population has grown by 816 (+1.9%), compared with +10.4% for Idaho as a whole.

With 848.3 square miles of land, that is 51 people per square mile (20 per km²), placing Nez Perce County #1,541 nationally for density and #9 in Idaho. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Idaho median is 10. Put another way, there are about 13 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 Nez Perce County

4 incorporated places lie at least partly in Nez Perce County. Together they are home to 36,559 people (85.2%); the other 6,346 (14.8%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Lewiston city, with 34,717 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Lapwai city grew fastest since then (+3.6%).

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

Metropolitan area

Nez Perce County is a central county of the Lewiston, ID-WA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 65,450 residents on 1,484.4 square miles of land; Nez Perce County accounts for 57.1% of the land and 65.6% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #220 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #388 by population.

ZIP codes

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

83501835248353583537835408354183545835488355583832

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 Nez Perce County

Nez Perce County shares a land border with 7 county equivalents, including 3 in Washington and Oregon. It has more land than 2 of them. The largest neighbor is Idaho County (8,477.5 mi²) and the smallest is Lewis County (478.8 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Nez Perce County forms a block of 19,279 mi² of land, of which it holds 4.4%.

How big is Nez Perce County compared with U.S. states?

Nez Perce County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.2 times as much. Idaho’s county land could hold about 97 areas the size of Nez Perce County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 29.1 miles (46.9 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 Nez Perce County?

Nez Perce County has more land than 2,238 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 Nez Perce County at #1,079 nationally by total area, 95 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 Nez Perce 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.