Pulaski County area

Population and density of Pulaski County

The Census Bureau estimates that 33,586 people lived in Pulaski County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,390 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #54 of 133 in Virginia. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 33,797, the population has declined by 211 (−0.6%), compared with +2.9% for Virginia as a whole.

With 319.8 square miles of land, that is 105 people per square mile (41 per km²), placing Pulaski County #951 nationally for density and #69 in Virginia. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Virginia median is 109. Put another way, there are about 6.1 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 Pulaski County

2 incorporated places lie at least partly in Pulaski County. Together they are home to 11,459 people (34.1%); the other 22,127 (65.9%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Pulaski town, with 8,807 residents in the county.

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

Metropolitan area

Pulaski 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; Pulaski County accounts for 22% of the land and 18.5% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #226 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #254 by population.

ZIP codes

9 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Pulaski County; 7 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

240582408424129241322414124301243132432424347

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 Pulaski County

Pulaski County shares a land border with 7 county equivalents. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Carroll County (474.7 mi²) and the smallest is Radford city (9.7 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Pulaski County forms a block of 2,748.9 mi² of land, of which it holds 11.6%.

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

Pulaski County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 3.2 times as much. Virginia’s county land could hold about 123 areas the size of Pulaski County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 17.9 miles (28.8 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 Pulaski County?

Pulaski County has more land than 460 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 Pulaski County at #2,784 nationally by total area, 22 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 2.9%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1.7 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 Pulaski 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.