Breathitt County area

Population and density of Breathitt County

The Census Bureau estimates that 12,558 people lived in Breathitt County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,318 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #89 of 120 in Kentucky. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 13,721, the population has declined by 1,163 (−8.5%), compared with +2.2% for Kentucky as a whole.

With 492.4 square miles of land, that is 26 people per square mile (9.8 per km²), placing Breathitt County #2,131 nationally for density and #113 in Kentucky. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Kentucky median is 59. Put another way, there are about 25 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 Breathitt County

1 incorporated place lies at least partly in Breathitt County. Together they are home to 2,054 people (16.4%); the other 10,504 (83.6%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Jackson city, with 2,054 residents in the county.

Metropolitan area

Breathitt County is not part of any metropolitan or micropolitan statistical area in the Office of Management and Budget’s July 2023 delineation; 1,306 other county equivalents are also outside one. These areas are built around an urban core of at least 10,000 people plus the counties tied to it by commuting, so counties outside them are generally rural.

ZIP codes

12 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Breathitt County; 7 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

413014131041311413144131741339413484136641385413904172141745

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 Breathitt County

Breathitt County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. It has more land than every one of them. The largest neighbor is Knott County (351.5 mi²) and the smallest is Owsley County (197.4 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Breathitt County forms a block of 2,120.5 mi² of land, of which it holds 23.2%.

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

Breathitt County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.1 times as much. Kentucky’s county land could hold about 80 areas the size of Breathitt County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 22.2 miles (35.7 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 Breathitt County?

Breathitt County has more land than 1,110 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 Breathitt County at #2,202 nationally by total area, 90 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 Breathitt 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.