Owen County area

Population and density of Owen County

The Census Bureau estimates that 21,886 people lived in Owen County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,779 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #68 of 92 in Indiana. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 21,336, the population has grown by 550 (+2.6%), compared with +2.8% for Indiana as a whole.

With 385.3 square miles of land, that is 57 people per square mile (22 per km²), placing Owen County #1,439 nationally for density and #69 in Indiana. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Indiana median is 88. Put another way, there are about 11 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 Owen County

2 incorporated places lie at least partly in Owen County. Together they are home to 3,344 people (15.3%); the other 18,542 (84.7%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Spencer town, with 2,479 residents in the county.

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

Metropolitan area

Owen County is an outlying county of the Bloomington, IN Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 165,231 residents on 779.8 square miles of land; Owen County accounts for 49.4% of the land and 13.2% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #309 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #271 by population. It belongs to the Bloomington-Bedford, IN Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

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

4612046166474044742747431474334745547456474594746047471478334784147868

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 Owen County

Owen County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Greene County (542.5 mi²) and the smallest is Clay County (357.6 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Owen County forms a block of 2,564.3 mi² of land, of which it holds 15%.

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

Owen County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.7 times as much. Indiana’s county land could hold about 93 areas the size of Owen County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 19.6 miles (31.6 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 Owen County?

Owen County has more land than 638 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 Owen County at #2,639 nationally by total area, 55 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 0.7%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.5 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 Owen 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.