DeKalb County area

Population and density of DeKalb County

The Census Bureau estimates that 21,873 people lived in DeKalb County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,781 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #65 of 95 in Tennessee. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 20,074, the population has grown by 1,799 (+9%), compared with +5.8% for Tennessee as a whole.

With 304.4 square miles of land, that is 72 people per square mile (28 per km²), placing DeKalb County #1,239 nationally for density and #51 in Tennessee. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Tennessee median is 76. Put another way, there are about 8.9 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 DeKalb County

4 incorporated places lie at least partly in DeKalb County. Together they are home to 7,283 people (33.3%); the other 14,590 (66.7%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Smithville city, with 5,620 residents in the county.

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

Metropolitan area

DeKalb 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

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

3701237059370953716638544385483856738569385813858238583

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 DeKalb County

DeKalb County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Wilson County (571.1 mi²) and the smallest is Cannon County (265.6 mi²). Together with its neighbors, DeKalb County forms a block of 2,665.9 mi² of land, of which it holds 11.4%.

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

DeKalb County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 3.4 times as much. Tennessee’s county land could hold about 135 areas the size of DeKalb County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 17.4 miles (28.1 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 DeKalb County?

DeKalb County has more land than 419 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 DeKalb County at #2,787 nationally by total area, 16 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 7.5%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 6.3 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 DeKalb 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.