Defiance County area

Population and density of Defiance County

The Census Bureau estimates that 38,292 people lived in Defiance County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,250 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #65 of 88 in Ohio. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 38,288, the population has grown by 4 (+0%), compared with +0.9% for Ohio as a whole.

With 411.4 square miles of land, that is 93 people per square mile (36 per km²), placing Defiance County #1,043 nationally for density and #58 in Ohio. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Ohio median is 120. Put another way, there are about 6.9 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 Defiance County

4 incorporated places lie at least partly in Defiance County. Together they are home to 21,549 people (56.3%); the other 16,743 (43.7%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Defiance city, with 17,009 residents in the county.

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

Metropolitan area

Defiance County is a central county of the Defiance, OH Micropolitan Statistical Area. Defiance County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the micro area has the same 411.4 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #476 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #345 by population.

ZIP codes

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

43506435124351743519435204352643527435304353643545435484354943556458134582145831

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 Defiance County

Defiance County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents, including 2 in Indiana. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Allen County (657.1 mi²) and the smallest is DeKalb County (362.8 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Defiance County forms a block of 3,167.1 mi² of land, of which it holds 13%.

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

Defiance County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.5 times as much. Ohio’s county land could hold about 99 areas the size of Defiance County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 20.3 miles (32.6 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 Defiance County?

Defiance County has more land than 763 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 Defiance County at #2,521 nationally by total area, 62 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 0.7%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.5 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 Defiance 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.