Anne Arundel County area

Population and density of Anne Arundel County

The Census Bureau estimates that 603,380 people lived in Anne Arundel County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #117 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #4 of 24 in Maryland. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 592,645, the population has grown by 10,735 (+1.8%), compared with +1.4% for Maryland as a whole.

With 414.8 square miles of land, that is 1,455 people per square mile (562 per km²), placing Anne Arundel County #124 nationally for density and #4 in Maryland. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Maryland median is 335. Put another way, there are about 0.44 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 Anne Arundel County

2 incorporated places lie at least partly in Anne Arundel County. Together they are home to 40,738 people (6.8%); the other 562,642 (93.2%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Annapolis city, with 40,634 residents in the county.

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

Metropolitan area

Anne Arundel County is a central county of the Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 7 county equivalents have 2,857,781 residents on 2,601.5 square miles of land; Anne Arundel County accounts for 15.9% of the land and 21.1% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #125 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #22 by population. It belongs to the Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

42 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Anne Arundel County; 37 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

207012071120714207242073320736207512075420755207582076420765207762077820779207942101221032210352103721054210562106021061210762107721090211082111321114211222114021144211462122521226212402140121402214032140521409

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 Anne Arundel County

Anne Arundel County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. It has more land than 3 of them. The largest neighbor is Baltimore County (598.4 mi²) and the smallest is Baltimore city (80.9 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Anne Arundel County forms a block of 2,040.9 mi² of land, of which it holds 20.3%.

How big is Anne Arundel County compared with U.S. states?

Anne Arundel County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.5 times as much. Maryland’s county land could hold about 23 areas the size of Anne Arundel County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 20.4 miles (32.8 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 Anne Arundel County?

Anne Arundel County has more land than 783 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 Anne Arundel County at #1,788 nationally by total area, 651 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 29.4%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 28.3 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 Anne Arundel 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.