Salem city area

Population and density of Salem city

The Census Bureau estimates that 25,816 people lived in Salem city on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,639 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #71 of 133 in Virginia. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 25,341, the population has grown by 475 (+1.9%), compared with +2.9% for Virginia as a whole.

With 14.5 square miles of land, that is 1,778 people per square mile (687 per km²), placing Salem city #93 nationally for density and #23 in Virginia. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Virginia median is 109. Put another way, there are about 0.36 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 Salem city

Every resident of Salem city lives within Salem city. The city and the county equivalent cover the same territory, 14.5 square miles of land in the 2026 place Gazetteer, so there are no separate towns or unincorporated areas to list.

Metropolitan area

Salem city is a central county of the Roanoke, VA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 6 county equivalents have 316,547 residents on 1,867.6 square miles of land; Salem city accounts for 0.8% of the land and 8.2% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #168 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #167 by population.

ZIP codes

1 ZIP Code Tabulation Area has land in Salem city; 0 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

24153

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 Salem city

Salem city shares a land border with 2 county equivalents. Each of them has more land than Salem city. The largest neighbor is Roanoke County (250.5 mi²) and the smallest is Roanoke city (42.5 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Salem city forms a block of 307.6 mi² of land, of which it holds 4.7%.

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

Salem city has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 71 times as much. Virginia’s county land could hold about 2,720 areas the size of Salem city.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 3.81 miles (6.1 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 Salem city?

Salem city has more land than 25 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 Salem city at #3,200 nationally by total area, 3 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 0.7%, 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 Salem 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.