Payette County area

Population and density of Payette County

The Census Bureau estimates that 27,824 people lived in Payette County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,560 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #14 of 44 in Idaho. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 25,378, the population has grown by 2,446 (+9.6%), compared with +10.4% for Idaho as a whole.

With 406.9 square miles of land, that is 68 people per square mile (26 per km²), placing Payette County #1,274 nationally for density and #7 in Idaho. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Idaho median is 10. Put another way, there are about 9.4 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 Payette County

3 incorporated places lie at least partly in Payette County. Together they are home to 17,655 people (63.5%); the other 10,169 (36.5%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Payette city, with 8,813 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Fruitland city grew fastest since then (+18.7%).

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

Metropolitan area

Payette County is a central county of the Ontario, OR-ID Micropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 60,085 residents on 10,294.6 square miles of land; Payette County accounts for 4% of the land and 46.3% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #4 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #164 by population. It belongs to the Boise City-Mountain Home-Ontario, ID-OR Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

7 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Payette County; 3 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

83607836178361983655836608366197913

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 Payette County

Payette County shares a land border with 4 county equivalents, including 1 in Oregon. Each of them has more land than Payette County. The largest neighbor is Malheur County (9,887.7 mi²) and the smallest is Gem County (559.8 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Payette County forms a block of 12,894.3 mi² of land, of which it holds 3.2%.

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

Payette County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.5 times as much. Idaho’s county land could hold about 203 areas the size of Payette County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 20.2 miles (32.5 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 Payette County?

Payette County has more land than 734 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 Payette County at #2,544 nationally by total area, 56 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 0.8%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.3 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 Payette 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.