Pottawattamie County area

Population and density of Pottawattamie County

The Census Bureau estimates that 92,996 people lived in Pottawattamie County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #665 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #10 of 99 in Iowa. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 93,659, the population has declined by 663 (−0.7%), compared with +1.5% for Iowa as a whole.

With 951.3 square miles of land, that is 98 people per square mile (38 per km²), placing Pottawattamie County #1,009 nationally for density and #11 in Iowa. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Iowa median is 26. Put another way, there are about 6.5 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 Pottawattamie County

15 incorporated places lie at least partly in Pottawattamie County. Together they are home to 75,714 people (81.4%); the other 17,282 (18.6%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Council Bluffs city, with 62,680 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Treynor city grew fastest since then (+6.3%).

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

Metropolitan area

Pottawattamie County is a central county of the Omaha, NE-IA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 8 county equivalents have 1,009,836 residents on 4,345.7 square miles of land; Pottawattamie County accounts for 21.9% of the land and 9.2% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #63 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #57 by population. It belongs to the Omaha-Fremont, NE-IA Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

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

515015150351510515215152551526515325153551536515415154251544515485154951553515555155951560515665157051571515755157651577

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 Pottawattamie County

Pottawattamie County shares a land border with 8 county equivalents, including 3 in Nebraska. It has more land than every one of them. The largest neighbor is Harrison County (696.9 mi²) and the smallest is Sarpy County (238 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Pottawattamie County forms a block of 4,619.2 mi² of land, of which it holds 20.6%.

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

Pottawattamie County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.1 times as much. Iowa’s county land could hold about 59 areas the size of Pottawattamie County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 30.8 miles (49.6 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 Pottawattamie County?

Pottawattamie County has more land than 2,480 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 Pottawattamie County at #831 nationally by total area, 89 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 0.8%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.3 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 Pottawattamie 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.