Jackson County area

Population and density of Jackson County

The Census Bureau estimates that 12,466 people lived in Jackson County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,326 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #86 of 95 in Tennessee. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 11,620, the population has grown by 846 (+7.3%), compared with +5.8% for Tennessee as a whole.

With 308.8 square miles of land, that is 40 people per square mile (16 per km²), placing Jackson County #1,745 nationally for density and #81 in Tennessee. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Tennessee median is 76. Put another way, there are about 16 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 Jackson County

1 incorporated place lies at least partly in Jackson County. Together they are home to 969 people (7.8%); the other 11,497 (92.2%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Gainesboro town, with 969 residents in the county.

Metropolitan area

Jackson County is an outlying county of the Cookeville, TN Micropolitan Statistical Area. Its 4 county equivalents have 152,477 residents on 1,520.1 square miles of land; Jackson County accounts for 20.3% of the land and 8.2% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #107 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #6 by population.

ZIP codes

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

3703037145371503850138506385453855138562385643856838588

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 Jackson County

Jackson County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. It has more land than 2 of them. The largest neighbor is Overton County (433.5 mi²) and the smallest is Clay County (236.5 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Jackson County forms a block of 2,001.4 mi² of land, of which it holds 15.4%.

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

Jackson County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 3.3 times as much. Tennessee’s county land could hold about 133 areas the size of Jackson County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 17.6 miles (28.3 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 Jackson County?

Jackson County has more land than 433 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 Jackson County at #2,807 nationally by total area, 18 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 3.4%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 2.2 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 Jackson 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.