Ottawa County area

Population and density of Ottawa County

The Census Bureau estimates that 5,744 people lived in Ottawa County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,829 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #59 of 105 in Kansas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 5,729, the population has grown by 15 (+0.3%), compared with +1.3% for Kansas as a whole.

With 720.7 square miles of land, that is 8 people per square mile (3.1 per km²), placing Ottawa County #2,719 nationally for density and #54 in Kansas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Kansas median is 8.1. Put another way, there are about 80 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 Ottawa County

5 incorporated places lie at least partly in Ottawa County. Together they are home to 3,210 people (55.9%); the other 2,534 (44.1%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Minneapolis city, with 1,907 residents in the county.

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

Metropolitan area

Ottawa County is an outlying county of the Salina, KS Micropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 59,121 residents on 1,441 square miles of land; Ottawa County accounts for 50% of the land and 9.7% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #117 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #170 by population.

ZIP codes

11 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Ottawa County; 4 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

6740167422674326743667445674586746667467674706748067484

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 Ottawa County

Ottawa County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. It has more land than 5 of them. The largest neighbor is Dickinson County (847.1 mi²) and the smallest is Clay County (645.3 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Ottawa County forms a block of 5,069.9 mi² of land, of which it holds 14.2%.

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

Ottawa County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.4 times as much. Kansas’s county land could hold about 113 areas the size of Ottawa County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 26.8 miles (43.2 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 Ottawa County?

Ottawa County has more land than 1,980 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 Ottawa County at #1,357 nationally by total area, 115 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 0.1%, 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 Ottawa 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.