Harrison County area

Population and density of Harrison County

The Census Bureau estimates that 217,136 people lived in Harrison County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #333 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #1 of 82 in Mississippi. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 208,624, the population has grown by 8,512 (+4.1%), compared with −0.2% for Mississippi as a whole.

With 573.7 square miles of land, that is 378 people per square mile (146 per km²), placing Harrison County #430 nationally for density and #2 in Mississippi. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Mississippi median is 43. Put another way, there are about 1.7 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 Harrison County

5 incorporated places lie at least partly in Harrison County. Together they are home to 162,347 people (74.8%); the other 54,789 (25.2%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Gulfport city, with 76,506 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Pass Christian city grew fastest since then (+13.4%).

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

Metropolitan area

Harrison County is a central county of the Gulfport-Biloxi, MS Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 4 county equivalents have 431,329 residents on 2,216 square miles of land; Harrison County accounts for 25.9% of the land and 50.3% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #145 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #131 by population.

ZIP codes

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

39501395033950739530395313953239534395403956039565395713957339574

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 Harrison County

Harrison County shares a land border with 3 county equivalents. It has more land than 2 of them. The largest neighbor is Jackson County (722.8 mi²) and the smallest is Stone County (445.5 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Harrison County forms a block of 2,216 mi² of land, of which it holds 25.9%.

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

Harrison County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.8 times as much. Mississippi’s county land could hold about 82 areas the size of Harrison County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 24 miles (38.5 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 Harrison County?

Harrison County has more land than 1,480 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 Harrison County at #794 nationally by total area, 948 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 41.7%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 40.6 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 Harrison 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.