Tensas Parish area

Population and density of Tensas Parish

The Census Bureau estimates that 3,700 people lived in Tensas Parish on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,982 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #64 of 64 in Louisiana. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 4,148, the population has declined by 448 (−10.8%), compared with −0.9% for Louisiana as a whole.

With 603.3 square miles of land, that is 6.1 people per square mile (2.4 per km²), placing Tensas Parish #2,800 nationally for density and #63 in Louisiana. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Louisiana median is 48. Put another way, there are about 104 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 Tensas Parish

3 incorporated places lie at least partly in Tensas Parish. Together they are home to 2,034 people (55%); the other 1,666 (45%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Newellton town, with 799 residents in the county. The county seat, St. Joseph town, has 746 residents. By land, St. Joseph town is the largest at 0.89 mi².

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

Metropolitan area

Tensas Parish 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

4 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Tensas Parish; 3 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

71282713577136671375

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 Tensas Parish

Tensas Parish shares a land border with 8 county equivalents, including 4 in Mississippi. It has more land than 4 of them. The largest neighbor is Catahoula Parish (709.3 mi²) and the smallest is Adams County (462.3 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Tensas Parish forms a block of 5,314.7 mi² of land, of which it holds 11.4%.

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

Tensas 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 72 areas the size of Tensas Parish.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 24.6 miles (39.5 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 Tensas Parish?

Tensas Parish has more land than 1,605 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 Tensas Parish at #1,604 nationally by total area, 13 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 6%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 4.8 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 Tensas 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.