Clay County area

Population and density of Clay County

The Census Bureau estimates that 19,465 people lived in Clay County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,919 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #63 of 120 in Kentucky. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 20,336, the population has declined by 871 (−4.3%), compared with +2.2% for Kentucky as a whole.

With 469.3 square miles of land, that is 41 people per square mile (16 per km²), placing Clay County #1,721 nationally for density and #83 in Kentucky. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Kentucky median is 59. Put another way, there are about 15 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 Clay County

1 incorporated place lies at least partly in Clay County. Together they are home to 1,411 people (7.2%); the other 18,054 (92.8%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Manchester city, with 1,411 residents in the county.

Metropolitan area

Clay County is an outlying county of the Corbin, KY Micropolitan Statistical Area. Its 4 county equivalents have 150,040 residents on 1,727.3 square miles of land; Clay County accounts for 27.2% of the land and 13% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #94 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #8 by population. It belongs to the Middlesborough-Corbin, KY Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

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

40486407414074440874409134091440941409624097240983

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 Clay County

Clay County shares a land border with 7 county equivalents. It has more land than every one of them. The largest neighbor is Laurel County (433.7 mi²) and the smallest is Owsley County (197.4 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Clay County forms a block of 2,931.6 mi² of land, of which it holds 16%.

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

Clay County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.2 times as much. Kentucky’s county land could hold about 84 areas the size of Clay County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 21.7 miles (34.9 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 Clay County?

Clay County has more land than 1,028 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 Clay County at #2,277 nationally by total area, 83 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 0.4%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.8 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 Clay 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.