Clay County area

Population and density of Clay County

The Census Bureau estimates that 6,170 people lived in Clay County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,794 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #47 of 93 in Nebraska. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 6,101, the population has grown by 69 (+1.1%), compared with +2.9% for Nebraska as a whole.

With 572.3 square miles of land, that is 11 people per square mile (4.2 per km²), placing Clay County #2,621 nationally for density and #43 in Nebraska. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Nebraska median is 8. Put another way, there are about 59 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 Clay County

10 incorporated places lie at least partly in Clay County. Together they are home to 4,514 people (73.2%); the other 1,656 (26.8%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Sutton city, with 1,466 residents in the county. The county seat, Clay Center city, has 730 residents.

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

Metropolitan area

Clay County is an outlying county of the Hastings, NE Micropolitan Statistical Area. Its 3 county equivalents have 40,577 residents on 1,710.5 square miles of land; Clay County accounts for 33.5% of the land and 15.2% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #95 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #316 by population.

ZIP codes

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

684366845268818689016893368934689356893868941689446895468957689756897968980

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 Clay County

Clay County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. It has more land than 2 of them. The largest neighbor is Fillmore County (575.4 mi²) and the smallest is Hamilton County (542 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Clay County forms a block of 3,403 mi² of land, of which it holds 16.8%.

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

Clay 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. Nebraska’s county land could hold about 134 areas the size of Clay County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 23.9 miles (38.5 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 Clay County?

Clay County has more land than 1,469 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 Clay County at #1,895 nationally by total area, 142 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 0.2%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1 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 Clay 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.