McCreary County area

Population and density of McCreary County

The Census Bureau estimates that 17,124 people lived in McCreary County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,033 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #67 of 120 in Kentucky. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 16,885, the population has grown by 239 (+1.4%), compared with +2.2% for Kentucky as a whole.

With 426.7 square miles of land, that is 40 people per square mile (15 per km²), placing McCreary County #1,751 nationally for density and #87 in Kentucky. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Kentucky median is 59. Put another way, there are about 16 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 McCreary County

McCreary County has no incorporated cities, towns or villages. All 17,124 of its residents live in unincorporated communities, which the Census Bureau describes as census-designated places rather than municipalities.

Metropolitan area

McCreary 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

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

4076942631426344263542638426474264942653

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 McCreary County

McCreary County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents, including 2 in Tennessee. Each of them has more land than McCreary County. The largest neighbor is Pulaski County (658.1 mi²) and the smallest is Laurel County (433.7 mi²). Together with its neighbors, McCreary County forms a block of 3,427 mi² of land, of which it holds 12.5%.

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

McCreary County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.4 times as much. Kentucky’s county land could hold about 93 areas the size of McCreary County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 20.7 miles (33.2 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 McCreary County?

McCreary County has more land than 843 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 McCreary County at #2,441 nationally by total area, 62 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 1%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.2 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 McCreary 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.