Franklin County area

Population and density of Franklin County

The Census Bureau estimates that 51,177 people lived in Franklin County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,011 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #5 of 14 in Vermont. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 49,950, the population has grown by 1,227 (+2.5%), compared with +0.2% for Vermont as a whole.

With 631 square miles of land, that is 81 people per square mile (31 per km²), placing Franklin County #1,145 nationally for density and #4 in Vermont. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Vermont median is 57. Put another way, there are about 7.9 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 Franklin County

Franklin County is divided into 15 cities and towns. In Vermont, county subdivisions are local governments, and together they cover all of the county’s land and residents.

The most populous is St. Albans town, with 7,147 residents (14% of the county). The largest by land is Fairfield town, at 67.3 mi², or 10.7% of the county’s land. Among those with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Fairfax town grew fastest since then (+8.7%).

Population: U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2025 subcounty estimates, counting only the part of each subdivision inside Franklin County. Land: 2026 Census Gazetteer. How communities are listed.

Metropolitan area

Franklin County is an outlying county of the Burlington-South Burlington, VT Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 3 county equivalents have 227,803 residents on 1,249.6 square miles of land; Franklin County accounts for 50.5% of the land and 22.5% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #250 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #216 by population. It belongs to the Burlington-South Burlington-Barre, VT Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

18 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Franklin County; 15 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

054410544405447054480545005454054550545705459054640546805471054760547805481054830548505488

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 Franklin County

Franklin County shares a land border with 4 county equivalents. It has more land than 3 of them. The largest neighbor is Orleans County (694.5 mi²) and the smallest is Grand Isle County (81.8 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Franklin County forms a block of 2,405.4 mi² of land, of which it holds 26.2%.

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

Franklin County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.6 times as much. Vermont’s county land could hold about 15 areas the size of Franklin County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 25.1 miles (40.4 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 Franklin County?

Franklin County has more land than 1,701 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 Franklin County at #1,466 nationally by total area, 55 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 8.4%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 7.3 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 Franklin 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.