Mineral County area

Population and density of Mineral County

The Census Bureau estimates that 26,792 people lived in Mineral County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,593 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #22 of 55 in West Virginia. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 26,934, the population has declined by 142 (−0.5%), compared with −1.5% for West Virginia as a whole.

With 327.9 square miles of land, that is 82 people per square mile (32 per km²), placing Mineral County #1,140 nationally for density and #17 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 7.8 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 Mineral County

5 incorporated places lie at least partly in Mineral County. Together they are home to 7,071 people (26.4%); the other 19,721 (73.6%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Keyser city, with 4,777 residents in the county.

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

Metropolitan area

Mineral County is an outlying county of the Cumberland, MD-WV Micropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 93,640 residents on 750.1 square miles of land; Mineral County accounts for 43.7% of the land and 28.6% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #287 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #45 by population.

ZIP codes

10 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Mineral County; 8 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

26710267172671926726267432675026753267632676726852

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 Mineral County

Mineral County shares a land border with 4 county equivalents, including 2 in Maryland. Each of them has more land than Mineral County. The largest neighbor is Garrett County (649.1 mi²) and the smallest is Allegany County (422.2 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Mineral County forms a block of 2,516.9 mi² of land, of which it holds 13%.

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

Mineral County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 3.2 times as much. West Virginia’s county land could hold about 73 areas the size of Mineral County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 18.1 miles (29.1 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 Mineral County?

Mineral County has more land than 476 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 Mineral County at #2,785 nationally by total area, 39 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 0.4%, 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 Mineral 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.