Rappahannock County area

Population and density of Rappahannock County

The Census Bureau estimates that 7,439 people lived in Rappahannock County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,697 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #121 of 133 in Virginia. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 7,351, the population has grown by 88 (+1.2%), compared with +2.9% for Virginia as a whole.

With 266.4 square miles of land, that is 28 people per square mile (11 per km²), placing Rappahannock County #2,066 nationally for density and #124 in Virginia. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Virginia median is 109. Put another way, there are about 23 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 Rappahannock County

1 incorporated place lies at least partly in Rappahannock County. Together they are home to 84 people (1.1%); the other 7,355 (98.9%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Washington town, with 84 residents in the county.

Metropolitan area

Rappahannock County is an outlying county of the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area, in the Arlington-Alexandria-Reston, VA-WV metropolitan division. Its 23 county equivalents have 6,465,724 residents on 6,033.7 square miles of land; Rappahannock County accounts for 4.4% of the land and 0.1% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #35 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #7 by population. It belongs to the Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

10 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Rappahannock County; 8 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

20106226232262722630226402271322716227402274722749

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 Rappahannock County

Rappahannock County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Fauquier County (648 mi²) and the smallest is Warren County (214.6 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Rappahannock County forms a block of 2,138.8 mi² of land, of which it holds 12.5%.

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

Rappahannock County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 3.9 times as much. Virginia’s county land could hold about 148 areas the size of Rappahannock County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 16.3 miles (26.3 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 Rappahannock County?

Rappahannock County has more land than 350 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 Rappahannock County at #2,909 nationally by total area, 37 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 0.3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.9 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 Rappahannock 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.