Doniphan County area

Population and density of Doniphan County

The Census Bureau estimates that 7,594 people lived in Doniphan County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,678 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #50 of 105 in Kansas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 7,506, the population has grown by 88 (+1.2%), compared with +1.3% for Kansas as a whole.

With 393.5 square miles of land, that is 19 people per square mile (7.5 per km²), placing Doniphan County #2,349 nationally for density and #36 in Kansas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Kansas median is 8.1. Put another way, there are about 33 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 Doniphan County

8 incorporated places lie at least partly in Doniphan County. Together they are home to 4,699 people (61.9%); the other 2,895 (38.1%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Wathena city, with 1,273 residents in the county. The county seat, Troy city, has 985 residents. By land, Elwood city is the largest at 2.91 mi². Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Elwood city grew fastest since then (+1.7%).

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

Metropolitan area

Doniphan County is an outlying county of the St. Joseph, MO-KS Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 4 county equivalents have 119,170 residents on 1,655.7 square miles of land; Doniphan County accounts for 23.8% of the land and 6.4% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #193 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #339 by population. It belongs to the Kansas City-Overland Park-Kansas City, MO-KS Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

10 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Doniphan County; 6 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

66002660086601766024660356604166087660906609466532

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 Doniphan County

Doniphan County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents, including 4 in Missouri and Nebraska. Each of them has more land than Doniphan County. The largest neighbor is Brown County (570.9 mi²) and the smallest is Buchanan County (408.3 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Doniphan County forms a block of 3,250.9 mi² of land, of which it holds 12.1%.

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

Doniphan County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.6 times as much. Kansas’s county land could hold about 208 areas the size of Doniphan County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 19.8 miles (31.9 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 Doniphan County?

Doniphan County has more land than 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 Doniphan County at #2,608 nationally by total area, 50 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 1.2%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2%. The two percentages are within 0.1 percentage points of each other. 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 Doniphan 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.