Meade County area

Population and density of Meade County

The Census Bureau estimates that 30,699 people lived in Meade County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,464 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #34 of 120 in Kentucky. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 30,005, the population has grown by 694 (+2.3%), compared with +2.2% for Kentucky as a whole.

With 305.5 square miles of land, that is 100 people per square mile (39 per km²), placing Meade County #995 nationally for density and #32 in Kentucky. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Kentucky median is 59. Put another way, there are about 6.4 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 Meade County

3 incorporated places lie at least partly in Meade County. Together they are home to 4,182 people (13.6%); the other 26,517 (86.4%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Brandenburg city, with 3,003 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Brandenburg city grew fastest since then (+3.7%).

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

Metropolitan area

Meade County is an outlying county of the Louisville/Jefferson County, KY-IN Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 12 county equivalents have 1,402,509 residents on 3,960.8 square miles of land; Meade County accounts for 7.7% of the land and 2.2% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #74 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #44 by population. It belongs to the Louisville/Jefferson County--Elizabethtown, KY-IN Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

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

401044010840117401214014240146401554015740161401714017540176

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 Meade County

Meade County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents, including 3 in Indiana. Each of them has more land than Meade County. The largest neighbor is Hardin County (623.9 mi²) and the smallest is Crawford County (305.6 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Meade County forms a block of 2,670.5 mi² of land, of which it holds 11.4%.

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

Meade County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 3.4 times as much. Kentucky’s county land could hold about 129 areas the size of Meade County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 17.5 miles (28.1 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 Meade County?

Meade County has more land than 423 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 Meade County at #2,798 nationally by total area, 1 places closer to the top than its land rank. The water assigned to this geography moves it ahead of some county equivalents with more land.

Its water share is 5.8%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 4.7 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 Meade 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.