Effingham County area

Population and density of Effingham County

The Census Bureau estimates that 34,519 people lived in Effingham County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,357 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #41 of 102 in Illinois. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 34,665, the population has declined by 146 (−0.4%), compared with −0.8% for Illinois as a whole.

With 478.8 square miles of land, that is 72 people per square mile (28 per km²), placing Effingham County #1,237 nationally for density and #34 in Illinois. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Illinois median is 44. Put another way, there are about 8.9 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 Effingham County

10 incorporated places lie at least partly in Effingham County. Together they are home to 19,383 people (56.2%); the other 15,136 (43.8%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Effingham city, with 12,406 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Teutopolis village grew fastest since then (+6.2%).

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

Metropolitan area

Effingham County is a central county of the Effingham, IL Micropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 44,727 residents on 824.7 square miles of land; Effingham County accounts for 58.1% of the land and 77.2% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #254 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #276 by population.

ZIP codes

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

624016241162414624246242662443624456245862461624626246762473624796283862858

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 Effingham County

Effingham County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. It has more land than 2 of them. The largest neighbor is Shelby County (758.5 mi²) and the smallest is Cumberland County (345.9 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Effingham County forms a block of 3,262.6 mi² of land, of which it holds 14.7%.

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

Effingham County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.2 times as much. Illinois’s county land could hold about 116 areas the size of Effingham County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 21.9 miles (35.2 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 Effingham County?

Effingham County has more land than 1,061 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 Effingham County at #2,244 nationally by total area, 83 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 0.3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.9 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 Effingham 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.