Pottawatomie County area

Population and density of Pottawatomie County

The Census Bureau estimates that 27,186 people lived in Pottawatomie County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,582 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #22 of 105 in Kansas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 25,353, the population has grown by 1,833 (+7.2%), compared with +1.3% for Kansas as a whole.

With 840.7 square miles of land, that is 32 people per square mile (12 per km²), placing Pottawatomie County #1,936 nationally for density and #23 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 Pottawatomie County

12 incorporated places lie at least partly in Pottawatomie County. Together they are home to 11,290 people (41.5%); the other 15,896 (58.5%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Wamego city, with 4,912 residents in the county (the city extends into 1 other county). The county seat, Westmoreland city, has 747 residents. By land, Manhattan city is the largest at 20.4 mi² across all its counties. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, St. George city grew fastest since then (+10.5%).

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

Metropolitan area

Pottawatomie County is an outlying county of the Manhattan, KS Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 3 county equivalents have 136,122 residents on 1,835 square miles of land; Pottawatomie County accounts for 45.8% of the land and 20% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #171 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #311 by population.

ZIP codes

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

664076642266427664326650266520665216653566536665406654766549

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 Pottawatomie County

Pottawatomie County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. It has more land than 5 of them. The largest neighbor is Marshall County (900.2 mi²) and the smallest is Shawnee County (544 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Pottawatomie County forms a block of 5,062.6 mi² of land, of which it holds 16.6%.

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

Pottawatomie County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.2 times as much. Kansas’s county land could hold about 97 areas the size of Pottawatomie County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 29 miles (46.7 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 Pottawatomie County?

Pottawatomie County has more land than 2,230 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 Pottawatomie County at #1,067 nationally by total area, 75 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 2.4%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1.3 percentage points higher. 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 Pottawatomie 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.