Boone County area

Population and density of Boone County

The Census Bureau estimates that 20,251 people lived in Boone County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,870 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #29 of 55 in West Virginia. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 21,811, the population has declined by 1,560 (−7.2%), compared with −1.5% for West Virginia as a whole.

With 502.4 square miles of land, that is 40 people per square mile (16 per km²), placing Boone County #1,746 nationally for density and #31 in West Virginia. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the West Virginia median is 45. Put another way, there are about 16 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 Boone County

4 incorporated places lie at least partly in Boone County. Together they are home to 3,797 people (18.7%); the other 16,454 (81.3%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Madison city, with 2,678 residents in the county.

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

Metropolitan area

Boone County is an outlying county of the Charleston, WV Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 3 county equivalents have 200,170 residents on 1,746.1 square miles of land; Boone County accounts for 28.8% of the land and 10.1% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #180 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #237 by population. It belongs to the Charleston-Huntington-Ashland, WV-OH-KY Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

31 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Boone County; 28 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

25003250092502125024250282504725049250512505325081250932510825114251302514225148251492515425165251692518125193252032520425205252062520825209255082552925565

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 Boone County

Boone County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. It has more land than 3 of them. The largest neighbor is Kanawha County (901.7 mi²) and the smallest is Lincoln County (437.1 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Boone County forms a block of 3,398.6 mi² of land, of which it holds 14.8%.

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

Boone County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.1 times as much. West Virginia’s county land could hold about 48 areas the size of Boone County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 22.4 miles (36.1 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 Boone County?

Boone County has more land than 1,153 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 Boone County at #2,165 nationally by total area, 96 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% — 0.8 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 Boone 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.