Cowley County area

Population and density of Cowley County

The Census Bureau estimates that 34,382 people lived in Cowley County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,362 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #15 of 105 in Kansas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 34,546, the population has declined by 164 (−0.5%), compared with +1.3% for Kansas as a whole.

With 1,125.7 square miles of land, that is 31 people per square mile (12 per km²), placing Cowley County #1,991 nationally for density and #26 in Kansas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Kansas median is 8.1. Put another way, there are about 21 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 Cowley County

9 incorporated places lie at least partly in Cowley County. Together they are home to 25,608 people (74.5%); the other 8,774 (25.5%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Arkansas City city, with 11,800 residents in the county. The county seat, Winfield city, has 11,745 residents. By land, Winfield city is the largest at 11.1 mi².

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

Metropolitan area

Cowley County is a central county of the Arkansas City-Winfield, KS Micropolitan Statistical Area. Cowley County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the micro area has the same 1,125.7 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #152 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #399 by population. It belongs to the Wichita-Arkansas City-Winfield, KS Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

15 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Cowley County; 9 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

670056700867019670236702467038670396705167072671026711067119671316714667156

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 Cowley County

Cowley County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents, including 2 in Oklahoma. It has more land than 3 of them. The largest neighbor is Osage County (2,246.7 mi²) and the smallest is Chautauqua County (638.9 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Cowley County forms a block of 8,186.6 mi² of land, of which it holds 13.8%.

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

Cowley County has more land than 1 of the 50 states. It is about 1.1 times the land area of Rhode Island (1,033.9 mi²), while Delaware, the next larger state, has 1.7 times as much land (1,948.6 mi²). Kansas’s county land could hold about 73 areas the size of Cowley County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 33.6 miles (54 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 Cowley County?

Cowley County has more land than 2,664 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 Cowley County at #642 nationally by total area, 84 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 0.6%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.6 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 Cowley 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.