Coles County area

Population and density of Coles County

The Census Bureau estimates that 46,607 people lived in Coles County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,072 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #31 of 102 in Illinois. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 47,187, the population has declined by 580 (−1.2%), compared with −0.8% for Illinois as a whole.

With 508.3 square miles of land, that is 92 people per square mile (35 per km²), placing Coles County #1,058 nationally for density and #24 in Illinois. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Illinois median is 44. Put another way, there are about 7 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 Coles County

6 incorporated places lie at least partly in Coles County. Together they are home to 36,051 people (77.4%); the other 10,556 (22.6%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Charleston city, with 17,466 residents in the county. By land, Mattoon city is the largest at 10.3 mi².

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

Metropolitan area

Coles County is a central county of the Charleston-Mattoon, IL Micropolitan Statistical Area. Coles County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the micro area has the same 508.3 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #427 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #250 by population.

ZIP codes

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

61910619116191261920619286193061931619336193861943619516242062440624476246962474

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 Coles County

Coles County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. It has more land than 4 of them. The largest neighbor is Shelby County (758.5 mi²) and the smallest is Moultrie County (336 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Coles County forms a block of 3,490.1 mi² of land, of which it holds 14.6%.

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

Coles 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 times as much. Illinois’s county land could hold about 109 areas the size of Coles County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 22.5 miles (36.3 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 Coles County?

Coles County has more land than 1,179 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 Coles County at #2,139 nationally by total area, 96 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 0.4%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.8 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 Coles 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.