Radford city area

Population and density of Radford city

The Census Bureau estimates that 17,243 people lived in Radford city on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,027 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #87 of 133 in Virginia. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 16,066, the population has grown by 1,177 (+7.3%), compared with +2.9% for Virginia as a whole.

With 9.7 square miles of land, that is 1,782 people per square mile (688 per km²), placing Radford city #91 nationally for density and #22 in Virginia. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Virginia median is 109. Put another way, there are about 0.359 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 Radford city

Every resident of Radford city lives within Radford city. The city and the county equivalent cover the same territory, 9.676 square miles of land in the 2026 place Gazetteer, so there are no separate towns or unincorporated areas to list.

Metropolitan area

Radford city is a central 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; Radford city accounts for 0.7% of the land and 9.5% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #226 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #254 by population.

ZIP codes

2 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Radford city; 1 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

2414124142

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 Radford city

Radford city shares a land border with 2 county equivalents. Each of them has more land than Radford city. The largest neighbor is Montgomery County (386.8 mi²) and the smallest is Pulaski County (319.8 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Radford city forms a block of 716.4 mi² of land, of which it holds 1.4%.

How big is Radford city compared with U.S. states?

Radford city has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 107 times as much. Virginia’s county land could hold about 4,080 areas the size of Radford city.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 3.11 miles (5 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 Radford city?

Radford city has more land than 14 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 Radford city at #3,207 nationally by total area, 1 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 3.3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 2.1 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 Radford city 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.