Ouachita Parish area

Population and density of Ouachita Parish

The Census Bureau estimates that 158,542 people lived in Ouachita Parish on July 1, 2025. That ranks #446 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #8 of 64 in Louisiana. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 160,366, the population has declined by 1,824 (−1.1%), compared with −0.9% for Louisiana as a whole.

With 610.1 square miles of land, that is 260 people per square mile (100 per km²), placing Ouachita Parish #560 nationally for density and #7 in Louisiana. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Louisiana median is 48. Put another way, there are about 2.5 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 Ouachita Parish

4 incorporated places lie at least partly in Ouachita Parish. Together they are home to 65,835 people (41.5%); the other 92,707 (58.5%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Monroe city, with 46,860 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Sterlington town grew fastest since then (+32.7%).

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

Metropolitan area

Ouachita Parish is a central county of the Monroe, LA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 4 county equivalents have 222,390 residents on 2,837.6 square miles of land; Ouachita Parish accounts for 21.5% of the land and 71.3% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #103 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #220 by population. It belongs to the Monroe-Ruston, LA Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

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

712017120271203712097121271220712257122771229712347123871280712917129271418

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 Ouachita Parish

Ouachita Parish shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. It has more land than 4 of them. The largest neighbor is Union Parish (876.9 mi²) and the smallest is Lincoln Parish (471.6 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Ouachita Parish forms a block of 4,408.7 mi² of land, of which it holds 13.8%.

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

Ouachita Parish has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.7 times as much. Louisiana’s county land could hold about 71 areas the size of Ouachita Parish.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 24.7 miles (39.8 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 Ouachita Parish?

Ouachita Parish has more land than 1,635 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 Ouachita Parish at #1,638 nationally by total area, 51 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 3.4%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 2.2 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 Ouachita 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.