Rapides Parish area

Population and density of Rapides Parish

The Census Bureau estimates that 125,877 people lived in Rapides Parish on July 1, 2025. That ranks #524 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #13 of 64 in Louisiana. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 130,015, the population has declined by 4,138 (−3.2%), compared with −0.9% for Louisiana as a whole.

With 1,324.1 square miles of land, that is 95 people per square mile (37 per km²), placing Rapides Parish #1,031 nationally for density and #19 in Louisiana. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Louisiana median is 48. Put another way, there are about 6.7 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 Rapides Parish

10 incorporated places lie at least partly in Rapides Parish. Together they are home to 66,432 people (52.8%); the other 59,445 (47.2%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Alexandria city, with 42,938 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Woodworth town grew fastest since then (+0.2%).

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

Metropolitan area

Rapides Parish is a central county of the Alexandria, LA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 147,952 residents on 1,967.8 square miles of land; Rapides Parish accounts for 67.3% of the land and 85.1% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #161 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #298 by population.

ZIP codes

29 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Rapides Parish; 19 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

7065671301713027130371322713237132571328713307134671351713597136071367714057140971423714247142771430714337143871447714557146371466714677147271485

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 Rapides Parish

Rapides Parish shares a land border with 7 county equivalents. It has more land than 6 of them. The largest neighbor is Vernon Parish (1,326.7 mi²) and the smallest is LaSalle Parish (624.9 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Rapides Parish forms a block of 7,428.3 mi² of land, of which it holds 17.8%.

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

Rapides Parish has more land than 1 of the 50 states. It is about 1.3 times the land area of Rhode Island (1,033.9 mi²), while Delaware, the next larger state, has 1.5 times as much land (1,948.6 mi²). Louisiana’s county land could hold about 33 areas the size of Rapides Parish.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 36.4 miles (58.6 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 Rapides Parish?

Rapides Parish has more land than 2,771 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 Rapides Parish at #505 nationally by total area, 54 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 2.7%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1.6 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 Rapides 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.