Chester County area

Population and density of Chester County

The Census Bureau estimates that 17,994 people lived in Chester County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,000 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #72 of 95 in Tennessee. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 17,348, the population has grown by 646 (+3.7%), compared with +5.8% for Tennessee as a whole.

With 285.7 square miles of land, that is 63 people per square mile (24 per km²), placing Chester County #1,353 nationally for density and #57 in Tennessee. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Tennessee median is 76. Put another way, there are about 10 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 Chester County

4 incorporated places lie at least partly in Chester County. Together they are home to 6,851 people (38.1%); the other 11,143 (61.9%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Henderson city, with 6,590 residents in the county.

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

Metropolitan area

Chester County is an outlying county of the Jackson, TN Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 4 county equivalents have 184,569 residents on 1,711.2 square miles of land; Chester County accounts for 16.7% of the land and 9.7% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #187 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #249 by population.

ZIP codes

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

380443831338315383323833438340383473835238356383593836638368

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 Chester County

Chester County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. Each of them has more land than Chester County. The largest neighbor is Hardeman County (667.8 mi²) and the smallest is Henderson County (520 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Chester County forms a block of 3,171 mi² of land, of which it holds 9%.

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

Chester County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 3.6 times as much. Tennessee’s county land could hold about 144 areas the size of Chester County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 16.9 miles (27.2 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 Chester County?

Chester County has more land than 391 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 Chester County at #2,872 nationally by total area, 41 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 0.1%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1.1 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 Chester 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.