Orange County area

Population and density of Orange County

The Census Bureau estimates that 30,002 people lived in Orange County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,486 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #10 of 14 in Vermont. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 29,281, the population has grown by 721 (+2.5%), compared with +0.2% for Vermont as a whole.

With 687 square miles of land, that is 44 people per square mile (17 per km²), placing Orange County #1,673 nationally for density and #12 in Vermont. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Vermont median is 57. Put another way, there are about 15 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 Orange County

Orange County is divided into 17 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 Randolph town, with 4,958 residents (16.5% of the county). The largest by land is Newbury town, at 64 mi², or 9.3% of the county’s land. The county seat, Chelsea town, has 1,252 residents. Among those with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Randolph town grew fastest since then (+3.9%).

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

Metropolitan area

Orange County is an outlying county of the Lebanon-Claremont, NH-VT Micropolitan Statistical Area. Its 4 county equivalents have 224,500 residents on 3,902.6 square miles of land; Orange County accounts for 17.6% of the land and 13.4% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #38 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #2 by population.

ZIP codes

31 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Orange County; 26 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

05033050360503805039050400504105043050450505105058050600506105065050680506905070050720507505076050770507905081050830508605641056490565405663056690567505679

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 Orange County

Orange County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents, including 1 in New Hampshire. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Grafton County (1,708.6 mi²) and the smallest is Caledonia County (649.2 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Orange County forms a block of 5,467.4 mi² of land, of which it holds 12.6%.

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

Orange County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.5 times as much. Vermont’s county land could hold about 13 areas the size of Orange County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 26.2 miles (42.2 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 Orange County?

Orange County has more land than 1,857 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 Orange County at #1,459 nationally by total area, 94 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 0.7%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.5 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 Orange 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.