Ellis County area

Population and density of Ellis County

The Census Bureau estimates that 29,075 people lived in Ellis County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,515 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #21 of 105 in Kansas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 28,933, the population has grown by 142 (+0.5%), compared with +1.3% for Kansas as a whole.

With 899.9 square miles of land, that is 32 people per square mile (12 per km²), placing Ellis County #1,939 nationally for density and #24 in Kansas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Kansas median is 8.1. Put another way, there are about 20 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 Ellis County

4 incorporated places lie at least partly in Ellis County. Together they are home to 24,480 people (84.2%); the other 4,595 (15.8%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Hays city, with 21,258 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Hays city grew fastest since then (+0.5%).

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

Metropolitan area

Ellis County is a central county of the Hays, KS Micropolitan Statistical Area. Ellis County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the micro area has the same 899.9 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #216 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #446 by population.

ZIP codes

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

675566756567601676276763767640676516766067663676676767167674

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 Ellis County

Ellis County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. It has more land than 5 of them. The largest neighbor is Ness County (1,074.7 mi²) and the smallest is Rush County (717.8 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Ellis County forms a block of 6,251.2 mi² of land, of which it holds 14.4%.

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

Ellis 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. Kansas’s county land could hold about 91 areas the size of Ellis County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 30 miles (48.3 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 Ellis County?

Ellis County has more land than 2,365 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 Ellis County at #975 nationally by total area, 118 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%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1.1 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 Ellis 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.