Brown County area

Population and density of Brown County

The Census Bureau estimates that 15,777 people lived in Brown County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,121 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #79 of 92 in Indiana. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 15,472, the population has grown by 305 (+2%), compared with +2.8% for Indiana as a whole.

With 312 square miles of land, that is 51 people per square mile (20 per km²), placing Brown County #1,542 nationally for density and #76 in Indiana. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Indiana median is 88. 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 Brown County

1 incorporated place lies at least partly in Brown County. Together they are home to 1,273 people (8.1%); the other 14,504 (91.9%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Nashville town, with 1,273 residents in the county.

Metropolitan area

Brown County is an outlying county of the Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood, IN Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 11 county equivalents have 2,205,695 residents on 4,086 square miles of land; Brown County accounts for 7.6% of the land and 0.7% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #71 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #33 by population. It belongs to the Indianapolis-Carmel-Muncie, IN Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

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

46160461644618147201472354727447401474354744847468

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 Brown County

Brown County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. Each of them has more land than Brown County. The largest neighbor is Jackson County (510 mi²) and the smallest is Johnson County (320.4 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Brown County forms a block of 2,347.7 mi² of land, of which it holds 13.3%.

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

Brown County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 3.3 times as much. Indiana’s county land could hold about 115 areas the size of Brown County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 17.7 miles (28.4 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 Brown County?

Brown County has more land than 440 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 Brown County at #2,810 nationally by total area, 28 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 1.5%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.3 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 Brown 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.