Garrett County area

Population and density of Garrett County

The Census Bureau estimates that 28,370 people lived in Garrett County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,540 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #22 of 24 in Maryland. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 28,806, the population has declined by 436 (−1.5%), compared with +1.4% for Maryland as a whole.

With 649.1 square miles of land, that is 44 people per square mile (17 per km²), placing Garrett County #1,672 nationally for density and #24 in Maryland. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Maryland median is 335. Put another way, there are about 15 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 Garrett County

8 incorporated places lie at least partly in Garrett County. Together they are home to 6,694 people (23.6%); the other 21,676 (76.4%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Mountain Lake Park town, with 2,101 residents in the county. The county seat, Oakland town, has 1,808 residents. By land, Oakland town is the largest at 2.712 mi².

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

Metropolitan area

Garrett County 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

12 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Garrett County; 11 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

215202152121523215312153221536215382153921541215502156121562

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 Garrett County

Garrett County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents, including 5 in West Virginia and Pennsylvania. It has more land than 4 of them. The largest neighbor is Somerset County (1,075 mi²) and the smallest is Mineral County (327.9 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Garrett County forms a block of 4,391.2 mi² of land, of which it holds 14.8%.

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

Garrett County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.6 times as much. Maryland’s county land could hold about 15 areas the size of Garrett County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 25.5 miles (41 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 Garrett County?

Garrett County has more land than 1,771 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 Garrett County at #1,549 nationally by total area, 98 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 1.3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.2 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 Garrett 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.