Stone County area

Population and density of Stone County

The Census Bureau estimates that 32,503 people lived in Stone County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,423 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #37 of 115 in Missouri. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 31,079, the population has grown by 1,424 (+4.6%), compared with +1.9% for Missouri as a whole.

With 463.8 square miles of land, that is 70 people per square mile (27 per km²), placing Stone County #1,259 nationally for density and #25 in Missouri. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Missouri median is 31. Put another way, there are about 9.1 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 Stone County

11 incorporated places lie at least partly in Stone County. Together they are home to 7,375 people (22.7%); the other 25,128 (77.3%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Kimberling City city, with 2,345 residents in the county. The county seat, Galena city, has 474 residents. By land, Branson city is the largest at 21.3 mi² across all its counties. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Reeds Spring city grew fastest since then (+7.5%).

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

Metropolitan area

Stone 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

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

656056561065611656166562465631656336565665669656756568165686657056571465728657376574765754

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 Stone County

Stone County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents, including 1 in Arkansas. Each of them has more land than Stone County. The largest neighbor is Barry County (778.1 mi²) and the smallest is Christian County (562.6 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Stone County forms a block of 3,678.5 mi² of land, of which it holds 12.6%.

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

Stone 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 148 areas the size of Stone County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 21.5 miles (34.7 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 Stone County?

Stone County has more land than 1,006 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 Stone County at #2,137 nationally by total area, 79 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 9.2%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 8 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 Stone 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.