Ralls County area

Population and density of Ralls County

The Census Bureau estimates that 10,444 people lived in Ralls County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,455 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #83 of 115 in Missouri. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 10,351, the population has grown by 93 (+0.9%), compared with +1.9% for Missouri as a whole.

With 469.8 square miles of land, that is 22 people per square mile (8.6 per km²), placing Ralls County #2,239 nationally for density and #75 in Missouri. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Missouri median is 31. Put another way, there are about 29 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 Ralls County

7 incorporated places lie at least partly in Ralls County. Together they are home to 2,771 people (26.5%); the other 7,673 (73.5%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is New London city, with 981 residents in the county. By land, Hannibal city is the largest at 16 mi² across all its counties.

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

Metropolitan area

Ralls County is an outlying county of the Hannibal, MO Micropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 38,969 residents on 906.7 square miles of land; Ralls County accounts for 51.8% of the land and 26.8% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #209 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #335 by population. It belongs to the Quincy-Hannibal, IL-MO Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

9 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Ralls County; 4 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

633526338263401634366344163456634596346263467

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 Ralls County

Ralls County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents, including 1 in Illinois. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Pike County (831.4 mi²) and the smallest is Marion County (436.9 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Ralls County forms a block of 3,748.4 mi² of land, of which it holds 12.5%.

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

Ralls County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.2 times as much. Missouri’s county land could hold about 146 areas the size of Ralls County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 21.7 miles (34.9 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 Ralls County?

Ralls County has more land than 1,030 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 Ralls County at #2,233 nationally by total area, 41 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 2.9%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1.7 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 Ralls 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.