Billings County area

Population and density of Billings County

The Census Bureau estimates that 1,071 people lived in Billings County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #3,183 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #52 of 53 in North Dakota. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 943, the population has grown by 128 (+13.6%), compared with +2.6% for North Dakota as a whole.

With 1,148.5 square miles of land, that is 0.93 people per square mile (0.36 per km²), placing Billings County #3,162 nationally for density and #52 in North Dakota. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the North Dakota median is 3.7. Put another way, there are about 686 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 Billings County

1 incorporated place lies at least partly in Billings County. Together they are home to 157 people (14.7%); the other 914 (85.3%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Medora city, with 157 residents in the county.

Metropolitan area

Billings County is an outlying county of the Dickinson, ND Micropolitan Statistical Area. Its 3 county equivalents have 39,142 residents on 4,492 square miles of land; Billings County accounts for 25.6% of the land and 2.7% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #29 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #329 by population.

ZIP codes

8 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Billings County; 3 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

5862058621586225862758634586405864258645

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 Billings County

Billings County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is McKenzie County (2,760.1 mi²) and the smallest is Golden Valley County (1,000.9 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Billings County forms a block of 9,468.2 mi² of land, of which it holds 12.1%.

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

Billings County has more land than 1 of the 50 states. It is about 1.1 times the land area of Rhode Island (1,033.9 mi²), while Delaware, the next larger state, has 1.7 times as much land (1,948.6 mi²). North Dakota’s county land could hold about 60 areas the size of Billings County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 33.9 miles (54.5 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 Billings County?

Billings County has more land than 2,685 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 Billings County at #620 nationally by total area, 83 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 0.4%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.8 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 Billings 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.