Portage County area

Population and density of Portage County

The Census Bureau estimates that 163,404 people lived in Portage County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #432 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #20 of 88 in Ohio. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 161,800, the population has grown by 1,604 (+1%), compared with +0.9% for Ohio as a whole.

With 487.5 square miles of land, that is 335 people per square mile (129 per km²), placing Portage County #464 nationally for density and #19 in Ohio. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Ohio median is 120. Put another way, there are about 1.9 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 Portage County

11 incorporated places lie at least partly in Portage County. Together they are home to 82,292 people (50.4%); the other 81,112 (49.6%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Kent city, with 27,737 residents in the county. The county seat, Ravenna city, has 11,136 residents. By land, Streetsboro city is the largest at 23.4 mi². Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Aurora city grew fastest since then (+4.5%).

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

Metropolitan area

Portage County is a central county of the Akron, OH Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 701,780 residents on 900.1 square miles of land; Portage County accounts for 54.2% of the land and 23.3% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #293 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #88 by population. It belongs to the Cleveland-Akron-Canton, OH Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

24 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Portage County; 15 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

442014420244224442314423444236442404424144243442554426044266442724427844285442884431244411444124442944444444494449144632

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 Portage County

Portage County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. It has more land than 3 of them. The largest neighbor is Trumbull County (617.6 mi²) and the smallest is Geauga County (400.4 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Portage County forms a block of 2,904.6 mi² of land, of which it holds 16.8%.

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

Portage County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.1 times as much. Ohio’s county land could hold about 84 areas the size of Portage County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 22.1 miles (35.5 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 Portage County?

Portage County has more land than 1,091 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 Portage County at #2,164 nationally by total area, 33 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 3.3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 2.1 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 Portage 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.