Preble County area

Population and density of Preble County

The Census Bureau estimates that 40,664 people lived in Preble County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,198 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #61 of 88 in Ohio. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 40,999, the population has declined by 335 (−0.8%), compared with +0.9% for Ohio as a whole.

With 424.2 square miles of land, that is 96 people per square mile (37 per km²), placing Preble County #1,023 nationally for density and #57 in Ohio. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Ohio median is 120. Put another way, there are about 6.7 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 Preble County

11 incorporated places lie at least partly in Preble County. Together they are home to 17,265 people (42.5%); the other 23,399 (57.5%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Eaton city, with 8,327 residents in the county.

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

Metropolitan area

Preble County is not part of any metropolitan or micropolitan statistical area in the Office of Management and Budget’s July 2023 delineation; 1,306 other county equivalents are also outside one. These areas are built around an urban core of at least 10,000 people plus the counties tied to it by commuting, so counties outside them are generally rural.

ZIP codes

16 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Preble County; 11 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

45003450424506445070453044530945311453204532145327453304533845347453784538145382

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 Preble County

Preble County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents, including 2 in Indiana. It has more land than 2 of them. The largest neighbor is Darke County (598.1 mi²) and the smallest is Union County (161.2 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Preble County forms a block of 2,513.2 mi² of land, of which it holds 16.9%.

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

Preble County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.4 times as much. Ohio’s county land could hold about 96 areas the size of Preble County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 20.6 miles (33.1 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 Preble County?

Preble County has more land than 835 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 Preble County at #2,458 nationally by total area, 71 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% — 0.6 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 Preble 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.