Crook County area

Population and density of Crook County

The Census Bureau estimates that 27,564 people lived in Crook County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,569 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #21 of 36 in Oregon. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 24,739, the population has grown by 2,825 (+11.4%), compared with +0.9% for Oregon as a whole.

With 2,978.9 square miles of land, that is 9.3 people per square mile (3.6 per km²), placing Crook County #2,667 nationally for density and #26 in Oregon. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Oregon median is 25. Put another way, there are about 69 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 Crook County

1 incorporated place lies at least partly in Crook County. Together they are home to 11,994 people (43.5%); the other 15,570 (56.5%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Prineville city, with 11,994 residents in the county.

Metropolitan area

Crook County is an outlying county of the Bend, OR Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 3 county equivalents have 266,376 residents on 7,778.2 square miles of land; Crook County accounts for 38.3% of the land and 10.3% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #22 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #191 by population.

ZIP codes

7 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Crook County; 4 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

97701977519775297753977549775697760

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 Crook County

Crook County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. It has more land than 2 of them. The largest neighbor is Harney County (10,134.5 mi²) and the smallest is Wheeler County (1,716 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Crook County forms a block of 24,156.5 mi² of land, of which it holds 12.3%.

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

Crook County has more land than 2 of the 50 states. It is about 1.5 times the land area of Delaware (1,948.6 mi²), while Connecticut, the next larger state, has 1.6 times as much land (4,842.5 mi²). Oregon’s county land could hold about 32 areas the size of Crook County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 54.6 miles (87.8 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 Crook County?

Crook County has more land than 3,049 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 Crook County at #188 nationally by total area, 15 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 0.3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.9 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 Crook 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.