Lincoln County area

Population and density of Lincoln County

The Census Bureau estimates that 22,328 people lived in Lincoln County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,762 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #10 of 56 in Montana. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 19,675, the population has grown by 2,653 (+13.5%), compared with +5.6% for Montana as a whole.

With 3,612.6 square miles of land, that is 6.2 people per square mile (2.4 per km²), placing Lincoln County #2,799 nationally for density and #14 in Montana. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Montana median is 2.8. Put another way, there are about 104 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 Lincoln County

4 incorporated places lie at least partly in Lincoln County. Together they are home to 5,839 people (26.2%); the other 16,489 (73.8%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Libby city, with 3,274 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Libby city grew fastest since then (+17.6%).

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

Metropolitan area

Lincoln 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

7 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Lincoln County, and each lies mostly inside the county.

59917599185992359930599335993459935

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are the Census Bureau’s approximations of USPS ZIP Code service areas, from the 2020 Census relationship files. Post-office-box and single-address ZIP Codes have no tabulation area.

Counties bordering Lincoln County

Lincoln County shares a land border with 4 county equivalents, including 2 in Idaho. It has more land than 3 of them. The largest neighbor is Flathead County (5,087.3 mi²) and the smallest is Boundary County (1,268.7 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Lincoln County forms a block of 14,462.2 mi² of land, of which it holds 25%.

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

Lincoln County has more land than 2 of the 50 states. It is about 1.9 times the land area of Delaware (1,948.6 mi²), while Connecticut, the next larger state, has 1.3 times as much land (4,842.5 mi²). Montana’s county land could hold about 40 areas the size of Lincoln County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 60.1 miles (96.7 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 Lincoln County?

Lincoln County has more land than 3,083 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 Lincoln County at #149 nationally by total area, 10 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% — 0.5 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 Lincoln 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.