Cooper County area

Population and density of Cooper County

The Census Bureau estimates that 17,136 people lived in Cooper County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,032 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #63 of 115 in Missouri. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 17,101, the population has grown by 35 (+0.2%), compared with +1.9% for Missouri as a whole.

With 564.7 square miles of land, that is 30 people per square mile (12 per km²), placing Cooper County #1,998 nationally for density and #59 in Missouri. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Missouri median is 31. Put another way, there are about 21 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 Cooper County

8 incorporated places lie at least partly in Cooper County. Together they are home to 10,196 people (59.5%); the other 6,940 (40.5%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Boonville city, with 7,867 residents in the county.

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

Metropolitan area

Cooper County is an outlying county of the Columbia, MO Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 3 county equivalents have 219,062 residents on 1,714.1 square miles of land; Cooper County accounts for 32.9% of the land and 7.8% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #186 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #222 by population. It belongs to the Columbia-Jefferson City-Moberly, MO Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

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

6501865025650686508165233652376527665287653016532265347653486535065354

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 Cooper County

Cooper County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. It has more land than 2 of them. The largest neighbor is Saline County (755.5 mi²) and the smallest is Moniteau County (415.1 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Cooper County forms a block of 4,164.5 mi² of land, of which it holds 13.6%.

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

Cooper 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. Missouri’s county land could hold about 122 areas the size of Cooper County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 23.8 miles (38.2 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 Cooper County?

Cooper County has more land than 1,404 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 Cooper County at #1,937 nationally by total area, 119 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 0.8%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.4 percentage points lower. 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 Cooper 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.