Jones County area

Population and density of Jones County

The Census Bureau estimates that 9,575 people lived in Jones County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,513 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #97 of 100 in North Carolina. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 9,175, the population has grown by 400 (+4.4%), compared with +7.2% for North Carolina as a whole.

With 471.4 square miles of land, that is 20 people per square mile (7.8 per km²), placing Jones County #2,318 nationally for density and #98 in North Carolina. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the North Carolina median is 116. Put another way, there are about 32 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 Jones County

3 incorporated places lie at least partly in Jones County. Together they are home to 1,380 people (14.4%); the other 8,195 (85.6%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Maysville town, with 853 residents in the county. The county seat, Trenton town, has 251 residents.

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

Metropolitan area

Jones County is an outlying county of the New Bern, NC Micropolitan Statistical Area. Its 3 county equivalents have 127,358 residents on 1,514.4 square miles of land; Jones County accounts for 31.1% of the land and 7.5% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #108 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #15 by population. It belongs to the New Bern-Morehead City, NC Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

9 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Jones County; 2 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

285012850428526285552856228572285732857428585

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 Jones County

Jones County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Duplin County (814.7 mi²) and the smallest is Lenoir County (399.1 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Jones County forms a block of 3,661.5 mi² of land, of which it holds 12.9%.

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

Jones 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. North Carolina’s county land could hold about 103 areas the size of Jones County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 21.7 miles (34.9 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 Jones County?

Jones County has more land than 1,035 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 Jones County at #2,265 nationally by total area, 78 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 0.5%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.7 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 Jones 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.