Giles County area

Population and density of Giles County

The Census Bureau estimates that 16,564 people lived in Giles County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,065 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #90 of 133 in Virginia. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 16,792, the population has declined by 228 (−1.4%), compared with +2.9% for Virginia as a whole.

With 357.2 square miles of land, that is 46 people per square mile (18 per km²), placing Giles County #1,627 nationally for density and #104 in Virginia. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Virginia median is 109. Put another way, there are about 14 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 Giles County

5 incorporated places lie at least partly in Giles County. Together they are home to 6,878 people (41.5%); the other 9,686 (58.5%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Pearisburg town, with 2,873 residents in the county.

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

Metropolitan area

Giles County is an outlying county of the Blacksburg-Christiansburg-Radford, VA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 5 county equivalents have 181,616 residents on 1,454.5 square miles of land; Giles County accounts for 24.6% of the land and 9.1% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #226 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #254 by population.

ZIP codes

10 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Giles County; 9 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

24086240932412424128241342413624147241502416724315

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 Giles County

Giles County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents, including 2 in West Virginia. It has more land than 2 of them. The largest neighbor is Monroe County (472.8 mi²) and the smallest is Pulaski County (319.8 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Giles County forms a block of 2,641.4 mi² of land, of which it holds 13.5%.

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

Giles 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. Virginia’s county land could hold about 111 areas the size of Giles County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 18.9 miles (30.4 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 Giles County?

Giles County has more land than 555 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 Giles County at #2,709 nationally by total area, 42 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 1.2%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2%. The two percentages are within 0.1 percentage points of each other. 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 Giles 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.