Roane County area

Population and density of Roane County

The Census Bureau estimates that 57,395 people lived in Roane County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #933 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #30 of 95 in Tennessee. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 53,544, the population has grown by 3,851 (+7.2%), compared with +5.8% for Tennessee as a whole.

With 360.8 square miles of land, that is 159 people per square mile (61 per km²), placing Roane County #747 nationally for density and #24 in Tennessee. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Tennessee median is 76. Put another way, there are about 4 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 Roane County

5 incorporated places lie at least partly in Roane County. Together they are home to 24,148 people (42.1%); the other 33,247 (57.9%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Kingston city, with 6,299 residents in the county. By land, Oak Ridge city is the largest at 85.3 mi² across all its counties. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Oak Ridge city grew fastest since then (+39.4%).

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

Metropolitan area

Roane County is an outlying county of the Knoxville, TN Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 9 county equivalents have 968,137 residents on 3,501 square miles of land; Roane County accounts for 10.3% of the land and 5.9% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #81 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #61 by population. It belongs to the Knoxville-Morristown-Sevierville, TN Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

10 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Roane County; 2 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

37748377633777137774378303784037846378543787437880

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 Roane County

Roane County shares a land border with 8 county equivalents. It has more land than 4 of them. The largest neighbor is Cumberland County (681.3 mi²) and the smallest is Meigs County (195.1 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Roane County forms a block of 3,579.9 mi² of land, of which it holds 10.1%.

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

Roane County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.9 times as much. Tennessee’s county land could hold about 114 areas the size of Roane County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 19 miles (30.6 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 Roane County?

Roane County has more land than 573 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 Roane County at #2,624 nationally by total area, 25 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 8.7%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 7.5 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 Roane 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.