Charlevoix County area

Population and density of Charlevoix County

The Census Bureau estimates that 26,036 people lived in Charlevoix County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,629 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #54 of 83 in Michigan. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 26,056, the population has declined by 20 (−0.1%), compared with +0.5% for Michigan as a whole.

With 416.3 square miles of land, that is 63 people per square mile (24 per km²), placing Charlevoix County #1,358 nationally for density and #41 in Michigan. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Michigan median is 62. 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 Charlevoix County

Charlevoix County is divided into 18 municipalities and townships. In Michigan, county subdivisions are local governments, and together they cover all of the county’s land and residents.

The most populous is Boyne City city, with 3,793 residents (14.6% of the county). The largest by land is Peaine township, at 52.3 mi², or 12.6% of the county’s land. The county seat, Charlevoix city, has 2,325 residents. Among those with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Charlevoix township grew fastest since then (+1.2%).

Population: U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2025 subcounty estimates, counting only the part of each subdivision inside Charlevoix County. Land: 2026 Census Gazetteer. How communities are listed.

Metropolitan area

Charlevoix 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

10 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Charlevoix County; 5 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

49712497134972049727497294973049770497824979549796

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 Charlevoix County

Charlevoix County shares a land border with 4 county equivalents. Each of them has more land than Charlevoix County. The largest neighbor is Cheboygan County (715.3 mi²) and the smallest is Emmet County (467.5 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Charlevoix County forms a block of 2,589.9 mi² of land, of which it holds 16.1%.

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

Charlevoix 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. Michigan’s county land could hold about 136 areas the size of Charlevoix 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 Charlevoix County?

Charlevoix County has more land than 794 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 Charlevoix County at #495 nationally by total area, 1,933 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 70.1%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 68.9 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 Charlevoix 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.