Albemarle County area

Population and density of Albemarle County

The Census Bureau estimates that 118,356 people lived in Albemarle County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #551 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #16 of 133 in Virginia. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 112,435, the population has grown by 5,921 (+5.3%), compared with +2.9% for Virginia as a whole.

With 720.5 square miles of land, that is 164 people per square mile (63 per km²), placing Albemarle County #730 nationally for density and #57 in Virginia. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Virginia median is 109. Put another way, there are about 3.9 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 Albemarle County

1 incorporated place lies at least partly in Albemarle County. Together they are home to 509 people (0.4%); the other 117,847 (99.6%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Scottsville town, with 509 residents in the county (the city extends into 1 other county).

Metropolitan area

Albemarle County is a central county of the Charlottesville, VA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 5 county equivalents have 228,597 residents on 1,643.6 square miles of land; Albemarle County accounts for 43.8% of the land and 51.8% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #195 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #213 by population.

ZIP codes

24 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Albemarle County; 14 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

229012290222903229042291122920229232293122932229352293622937229382294022942229432294622947229592296822969229742456224590

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 Albemarle County

Albemarle County shares a land border with 9 county equivalents. It has more land than 7 of them. The largest neighbor is Augusta County (967.1 mi²) and the smallest is Charlottesville city (10.2 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Albemarle County forms a block of 4,875.6 mi² of land, of which it holds 14.8%.

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

Albemarle County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.4 times as much. Virginia’s county land could hold about 55 areas the size of Albemarle County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 26.8 miles (43.2 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 Albemarle County?

Albemarle County has more land than 1,979 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 Albemarle County at #1,334 nationally by total area, 91 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 0.8%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.4 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 Albemarle 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.