Bates County area

Population and density of Bates County

The Census Bureau estimates that 16,512 people lived in Bates County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,068 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #64 of 115 in Missouri. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 16,039, the population has grown by 473 (+2.9%), compared with +1.9% for Missouri as a whole.

With 836.7 square miles of land, that is 20 people per square mile (7.6 per km²), placing Bates County #2,336 nationally for density and #81 in Missouri. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Missouri median is 31. Put another way, there are about 32 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 Bates County

11 incorporated places lie at least partly in Bates County. Together they are home to 8,488 people (51.4%); the other 8,024 (48.6%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Butler city, with 4,317 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Adrian city grew fastest since then (+4.2%).

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

Metropolitan area

Bates County is an outlying county of the Kansas City, MO-KS Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 14 county equivalents have 2,270,682 residents on 7,256.8 square miles of land; Bates County accounts for 11.5% of the land and 0.7% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #25 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #31 by population. It belongs to the Kansas City-Overland Park-Kansas City, MO-KS Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

13 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Bates County; 6 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

64720647226472364724647256473064742647456475264770647796478064788

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 Bates County

Bates County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents, including 2 in Kansas. It has more land than every one of them. The largest neighbor is Vernon County (826.4 mi²) and the smallest is Miami County (575.9 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Bates County forms a block of 4,901.6 mi² of land, of which it holds 17.1%.

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

Bates County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.2 times as much. Missouri’s county land could hold about 82 areas the size of Bates County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 28.9 miles (46.6 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 Bates County?

Bates County has more land than 2,222 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 Bates County at #1,086 nationally by total area, 86 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 1.7%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.6 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 Bates 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.