Wise County area

Population and density of Wise County

The Census Bureau estimates that 34,824 people lived in Wise County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,348 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #49 of 133 in Virginia. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 36,126, the population has declined by 1,302 (−3.6%), compared with +2.9% for Virginia as a whole.

With 403.4 square miles of land, that is 86 people per square mile (33 per km²), placing Wise County #1,104 nationally for density and #77 in Virginia. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Virginia median is 109. Put another way, there are about 7.4 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 Wise County

6 incorporated places lie at least partly in Wise County. Together they are home to 12,367 people (35.5%); the other 22,457 (64.5%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Big Stone Gap town, with 5,102 residents in the county. The county seat, Wise town, has 2,853 residents.

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

Metropolitan area

Wise County is not part of any metropolitan or micropolitan statistical area in the Office of Management and Budget’s July 2023 delineation; 1,306 other county equivalents are also outside one. These areas are built around an urban core of at least 10,000 people plus the counties tied to it by commuting, so counties outside them are generally rural.

ZIP codes

8 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Wise County, and each lies mostly inside the county.

2421624219242302424624273242792428324293

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are the Census Bureau’s approximations of USPS ZIP Code service areas, from the 2020 Census relationship files. Post-office-box and single-address ZIP Codes have no tabulation area.

Counties bordering Wise County

Wise County shares a land border with 8 county equivalents, including 3 in Kentucky. It has more land than 3 of them. The largest neighbor is Pike County (786.2 mi²) and the smallest is Norton city (7.5 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Wise County forms a block of 3,776.1 mi² of land, of which it holds 10.7%.

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

Wise County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.6 times as much. Virginia’s county land could hold about 98 areas the size of Wise County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 20.1 miles (32.3 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 Wise County?

Wise County has more land than 714 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 Wise County at #2,573 nationally by total area, 65 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 0.5%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.7 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 Wise 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.