Surry County area

Population and density of Surry County

The Census Bureau estimates that 6,603 people lived in Surry County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,768 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #126 of 133 in Virginia. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 6,555, the population has grown by 48 (+0.7%), compared with +2.9% for Virginia as a whole.

With 278.9 square miles of land, that is 24 people per square mile (9.1 per km²), placing Surry County #2,181 nationally for density and #127 in Virginia. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Virginia median is 109. Put another way, there are about 27 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 Surry County

3 incorporated places lie at least partly in Surry County. Together they are home to 779 people (11.8%); the other 5,824 (88.2%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Claremont town, with 310 residents in the county. The county seat, Surry town, has 210 residents. By land, Dendron town is the largest at 3.566 mi².

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

Metropolitan area

Surry County is an outlying county of the Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk, VA-NC Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 18 county equivalents have 1,797,213 residents on 3,201.9 square miles of land; Surry County accounts for 8.7% of the land and 0.4% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #96 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #38 by population. It belongs to the Virginia Beach-Chesapeake, VA-NC Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

10 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Surry County; 5 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

23430238392384223846238662388123883238882389023899

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 Surry County

Surry County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. It has more land than 2 of them. The largest neighbor is Southampton County (599.2 mi²) and the smallest is Charles City County (182.9 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Surry County forms a block of 2,132.4 mi² of land, of which it holds 13.1%.

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

Surry County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 3.7 times as much. Virginia’s county land could hold about 142 areas the size of Surry County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 16.7 miles (26.9 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 Surry County?

Surry County has more land than 371 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 Surry County at #2,825 nationally by total area, 26 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 10.1%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 8.9 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 Surry 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.