Cecil County area

Population and density of Cecil County

The Census Bureau estimates that 107,131 people lived in Cecil County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #593 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #13 of 24 in Maryland. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 103,721, the population has grown by 3,410 (+3.3%), compared with +1.4% for Maryland as a whole.

With 346.3 square miles of land, that is 309 people per square mile (119 per km²), placing Cecil County #496 nationally for density and #14 in Maryland. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Maryland median is 335. Put another way, there are about 2.1 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 Cecil County

8 incorporated places lie at least partly in Cecil County. Together they are home to 31,886 people (29.8%); the other 75,245 (70.2%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Elkton town, with 16,670 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Elkton town grew fastest since then (+5.5%).

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

Metropolitan area

Cecil County is a central county of the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD Metropolitan Statistical Area, in the Wilmington, DE-MD-NJ metropolitan division. Its 11 county equivalents have 6,329,118 residents on 4,603.2 square miles of land; Cecil County accounts for 7.5% of the land and 1.7% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #58 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #9 by population. It belongs to the Philadelphia-Reading-Camden, PA-NJ-DE-MD Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

15 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Cecil County, and each lies mostly inside the county.

219012190221903219042191121912219132191421915219172191821919219202192121930

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are the Census Bureau’s approximations of USPS ZIP Code service areas, from the 2020 Census relationship files. Post-office-box and single-address ZIP Codes have no tabulation area.

Counties bordering Cecil County

Cecil County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents, including 3 in Delaware and Pennsylvania. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Lancaster County (943.9 mi²) and the smallest is Kent County (276.9 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Cecil County forms a block of 3,181.2 mi² of land, of which it holds 10.9%.

How big is Cecil County compared with U.S. states?

Cecil County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 3 times as much. Maryland’s county land could hold about 28 areas the size of Cecil County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 18.6 miles (29.9 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 Cecil County?

Cecil County has more land than 534 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 Cecil County at #2,500 nationally by total area, 188 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 17.1%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 16 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 Cecil 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.