Dorchester County area

Population and density of Dorchester County

The Census Bureau estimates that 33,628 people lived in Dorchester County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,387 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #21 of 24 in Maryland. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 32,522, the population has grown by 1,106 (+3.4%), compared with +1.4% for Maryland as a whole.

With 540.8 square miles of land, that is 62 people per square mile (24 per km²), placing Dorchester County #1,362 nationally for density and #23 in Maryland. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Maryland median is 335. Put another way, there are about 10 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 Dorchester County

9 incorporated places lie at least partly in Dorchester County. Together they are home to 17,061 people (50.7%); the other 16,567 (49.3%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Cambridge city, with 13,457 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Cambridge city grew fastest since then (+2.8%).

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

Metropolitan area

Dorchester County is a central county of the Cambridge, MD Micropolitan Statistical Area. Dorchester County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the micro area has the same 540.8 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #411 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #408 by population. It belongs to the Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

19 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Dorchester County; 16 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

19973216132162221626216272163121632216342164321648216552165921664216692167221675216772183521869

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 Dorchester County

Dorchester County shares a land border with 4 county equivalents, including 1 in Delaware. It has more land than 3 of them. The largest neighbor is Sussex County (936.2 mi²) and the smallest is Talbot County (268.6 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Dorchester County forms a block of 2,439.4 mi² of land, of which it holds 22.2%.

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

Dorchester County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.9 times as much. Maryland’s county land could hold about 18 areas the size of Dorchester County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 23.3 miles (37.4 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 Dorchester County?

Dorchester County has more land than 1,290 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 Dorchester County at #798 nationally by total area, 1,134 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 45%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 43.8 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 Dorchester 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.