Aiken County area

Population and density of Aiken County

The Census Bureau estimates that 181,515 people lived in Aiken County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #388 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #11 of 46 in South Carolina. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 168,810, the population has grown by 12,705 (+7.5%), compared with +8.8% for South Carolina as a whole.

With 1,070.7 square miles of land, that is 170 people per square mile (65 per km²), placing Aiken County #708 nationally for density and #15 in South Carolina. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the South Carolina median is 78. Put another way, there are about 3.8 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 Aiken County

10 incorporated places lie at least partly in Aiken County. Together they are home to 69,230 people (38.1%); the other 112,285 (61.9%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Aiken city, with 33,808 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, North Augusta city grew fastest since then (+10.4%).

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

Metropolitan area

Aiken County is a central county of the Augusta-Richmond County, GA-SC Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 7 county equivalents have 641,231 residents on 3,480.7 square miles of land; Aiken County accounts for 30.8% of the land and 28.3% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #85 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #93 by population.

ZIP codes

23 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Aiken County; 17 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

2900629105291292913729146291642980129803298052980929816298282982929831298322983429841298422984729851298532985629860

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 Aiken County

Aiken County shares a land border with 7 county equivalents, including 2 in Georgia. It has more land than 6 of them. The largest neighbor is Orangeburg County (1,106.4 mi²) and the smallest is Richmond County (324.4 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Aiken County forms a block of 5,529.3 mi² of land, of which it holds 19.4%.

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

Aiken County has more land than 1 of the 50 states. It is about 1 times the land area of Rhode Island (1,033.9 mi²), while Delaware, the next larger state, has 1.8 times as much land (1,948.6 mi²). South Carolina’s county land could hold about 28 areas the size of Aiken County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 32.7 miles (52.7 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 Aiken County?

Aiken County has more land than 2,621 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 Aiken County at #689 nationally by total area, 88 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 0.9%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.3 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 Aiken 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.