Palo Alto County area

Population and density of Palo Alto County

The Census Bureau estimates that 8,899 people lived in Palo Alto County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,572 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #82 of 99 in Iowa. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 8,998, the population has declined by 99 (−1.1%), compared with +1.5% for Iowa as a whole.

With 563.9 square miles of land, that is 16 people per square mile (6.1 per km²), placing Palo Alto County #2,446 nationally for density and #84 in Iowa. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Iowa median is 26. Put another way, there are about 41 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 Palo Alto County

9 incorporated places lie at least partly in Palo Alto County. Together they are home to 6,517 people (73.2%); the other 2,382 (26.8%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Emmetsburg city, with 3,684 residents in the county.

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

Metropolitan area

Palo Alto County is not part of any metropolitan or micropolitan statistical area in the Office of Management and Budget’s July 2023 delineation; 1,306 other county equivalents are also outside one. These areas are built around an urban core of at least 10,000 people plus the counties tied to it by commuting, so counties outside them are generally rural.

ZIP codes

14 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Palo Alto County; 8 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

5051550527505285053650539505465055450562505785058150597505985134251358

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 Palo Alto County

Palo Alto County shares a land border with 4 county equivalents. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Kossuth County (972.7 mi²) and the smallest is Emmet County (395.9 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Palo Alto County forms a block of 3,077 mi² of land, of which it holds 18.3%.

How big is Palo Alto County compared with U.S. states?

Palo Alto County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.8 times as much. Iowa’s county land could hold about 99 areas the size of Palo Alto County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 23.7 miles (38.2 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 Palo Alto County?

Palo Alto County has more land than 1,398 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 Palo Alto County at #1,936 nationally by total area, 112 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%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.2 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 Palo Alto 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.