Sarpy County area

Population and density of Sarpy County

The Census Bureau estimates that 208,303 people lived in Sarpy County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #352 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #3 of 93 in Nebraska. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 190,607, the population has grown by 17,696 (+9.3%), compared with +2.9% for Nebraska as a whole.

With 238 square miles of land, that is 875 people per square mile (338 per km²), placing Sarpy County #208 nationally for density and #2 in Nebraska. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Nebraska median is 8. Put another way, there are about 0.731 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 Sarpy County

5 incorporated places lie at least partly in Sarpy County. Together they are home to 117,269 people (56.3%); the other 91,034 (43.7%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Bellevue city, with 64,863 residents in the county. The county seat, Papillion city, has 25,127 residents. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Springfield city grew fastest since then (+1.9%).

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

Metropolitan area

Sarpy County is a central county of the Omaha, NE-IA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 8 county equivalents have 1,009,836 residents on 4,345.7 square miles of land; Sarpy County accounts for 5.5% of the land and 20.6% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #63 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #57 by population. It belongs to the Omaha-Fremont, NE-IA Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

14 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Sarpy County; 13 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

6800568028680466805668059680696811368123681286813368136681386814768157

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 Sarpy County

Sarpy County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents, including 2 in Iowa. Each of them has more land than Sarpy County. The largest neighbor is Pottawattamie County (951.3 mi²) and the smallest is Douglas County (326.5 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Sarpy County forms a block of 3,258.9 mi² of land, of which it holds 7.3%.

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

Sarpy County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 4.3 times as much. Nebraska’s county land could hold about 323 areas the size of Sarpy County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 15.4 miles (24.8 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 Sarpy County?

Sarpy County has more land than 291 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 Sarpy County at #2,955 nationally by total area, 24 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 3.8%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 2.7 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 Sarpy 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.