Hooker County area

Population and density of Hooker County

The Census Bureau estimates that 686 people lived in Hooker County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #3,204 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #86 of 93 in Nebraska. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 710, the population has declined by 24 (−3.4%), compared with +2.9% for Nebraska as a whole.

With 721 square miles of land, that is 0.95 people per square mile (0.37 per km²), placing Hooker County #3,157 nationally for density and #85 in Nebraska. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Nebraska median is 8. Put another way, there are about 673 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 Hooker County

1 incorporated place lies at least partly in Hooker County. Together they are home to 457 people (66.6%); the other 229 (33.4%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Mullen village, with 457 residents in the county.

Metropolitan area

Hooker 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

1 ZIP Code Tabulation Area has land in Hooker County, and it lies mostly inside the county.

69152

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 Hooker County

Hooker County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. It has more land than 2 of them. The largest neighbor is Cherry County (5,960.1 mi²) and the smallest is Thomas County (712.6 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Hooker County forms a block of 9,744.7 mi² of land, of which it holds 7.4%.

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

Hooker County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.4 times as much. Nebraska’s county land could hold about 107 areas the size of Hooker County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 26.9 miles (43.2 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 Hooker County?

Hooker County has more land than 1,981 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 Hooker County at #1,356 nationally by total area, 115 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 0.1%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1.1 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 Hooker 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.