Pawnee County area

Population and density of Pawnee County

The Census Bureau estimates that 16,029 people lived in Pawnee County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,101 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #44 of 77 in Oklahoma. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 15,551, the population has grown by 478 (+3.1%), compared with +4.1% for Oklahoma as a whole.

With 568.3 square miles of land, that is 28 people per square mile (11 per km²), placing Pawnee County #2,059 nationally for density and #39 in Oklahoma. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Oklahoma median is 28. Put another way, there are about 23 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 Pawnee County

13 incorporated places lie at least partly in Pawnee County. Together they are home to 6,774 people (42.3%); the other 9,255 (57.7%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Cleveland city, with 3,271 residents in the county. The county seat, Pawnee city, has 1,974 residents. By land, Mannford town is the largest at 7.126 mi² across all its counties. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Cleveland city grew fastest since then (+2.1%).

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

Metropolitan area

Pawnee County is an outlying county of the Tulsa, OK Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 7 county equivalents have 1,069,273 residents on 6,270.1 square miles of land; Pawnee County accounts for 9.1% of the land and 1.5% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #32 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #54 by population. It belongs to the Tulsa-Bartlesville-Muskogee, OK Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

12 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Pawnee County; 5 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

730617402074032740347403874044740457405874081740857465074651

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 Pawnee County

Pawnee County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. Each of them has more land than Pawnee County. The largest neighbor is Osage County (2,246.7 mi²) and the smallest is Tulsa County (570.2 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Pawnee County forms a block of 5,751.7 mi² of land, of which it holds 9.9%.

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

Pawnee County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.8 times as much. Oklahoma’s county land could hold about 121 areas the size of Pawnee County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 23.8 miles (38.4 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 Pawnee County?

Pawnee County has more land than 1,425 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 Pawnee County at #1,761 nationally by total area, 36 places closer to the top than its land rank. The water assigned to this geography moves it ahead of some county equivalents with more land.

Its water share is 4.5%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 3.3 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 Pawnee 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.