Ascension Parish area

Population and density of Ascension Parish

The Census Bureau estimates that 135,105 people lived in Ascension Parish on July 1, 2025. That ranks #494 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #11 of 64 in Louisiana. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 126,499, the population has grown by 8,606 (+6.8%), compared with −0.9% for Louisiana as a whole.

With 290 square miles of land, that is 466 people per square mile (180 per km²), placing Ascension Parish #362 nationally for density and #5 in Louisiana. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Louisiana median is 48. Put another way, there are about 1.4 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 Ascension Parish

3 incorporated places lie at least partly in Ascension Parish. Together they are home to 22,646 people (16.8%); the other 112,459 (83.2%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Gonzales city, with 13,930 residents in the county. The county seat, Donaldsonville city, has 7,094 residents. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Gonzales city grew fastest since then (+15.2%).

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

Metropolitan area

Ascension Parish is a central county of the Baton Rouge, LA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 10 county equivalents have 888,699 residents on 4,367.8 square miles of land; Ascension Parish accounts for 6.6% of the land and 15.2% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #61 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #68 by population. It belongs to the Baton Rouge-Hammond, LA Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

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

7034670449707257073470737707697077470778

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 Ascension Parish

Ascension Parish shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. It has more land than 2 of them. The largest neighbor is Livingston Parish (648.1 mi²) and the smallest is St. John the Baptist Parish (214.5 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Ascension Parish forms a block of 2,807.3 mi² of land, of which it holds 10.3%.

How big is Ascension Parish compared with U.S. states?

Ascension Parish has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 3.6 times as much. Louisiana’s county land could hold about 149 areas the size of Ascension Parish.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 17 miles (27.4 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 Ascension Parish?

Ascension Parish has more land than 399 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 Ascension Parish at #2,842 nationally by total area, 19 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 4.2%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 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 Ascension Parish 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.