Kitsap County area

Population and density of Kitsap County

The Census Bureau estimates that 283,374 people lived in Kitsap County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #259 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #7 of 39 in Washington. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 275,614, the population has grown by 7,760 (+2.8%), compared with +3.8% for Washington as a whole.

With 395.1 square miles of land, that is 717 people per square mile (277 per km²), placing Kitsap County #255 nationally for density and #3 in Washington. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Washington median is 39. Put another way, there are about 0.892 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 Kitsap County

4 incorporated places lie at least partly in Kitsap County. Together they are home to 102,761 people (36.3%); the other 180,613 (63.7%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Bremerton city, with 45,482 residents in the county. The county seat, Port Orchard city, has 19,839 residents. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Port Orchard city grew fastest since then (+27.3%).

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

Metropolitan area

Kitsap County is a central county of the Bremerton-Silverdale-Port Orchard, WA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Kitsap County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the metro area has the same 395.1 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #378 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #179 by population. It belongs to the Seattle-Tacoma, WA Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

22 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Kitsap County; 20 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

98110983109831198312983149831598329983379834098342983459834698353983599836498366983679837098380983839839298528

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 Kitsap County

Kitsap County shares a land border with 2 county equivalents. Each of them has more land than Kitsap County. The largest neighbor is Pierce County (1,668 mi²) and the smallest is Mason County (959.6 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Kitsap County forms a block of 3,022.7 mi² of land, of which it holds 13.1%.

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

Kitsap 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. Washington’s county land could hold about 168 areas the size of Kitsap County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 19.9 miles (32 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 Kitsap County?

Kitsap County has more land than 674 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 Kitsap County at #1,952 nationally by total area, 596 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 30.2%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 29 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 Kitsap 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.