Adams County area

Population and density of Adams County

The Census Bureau estimates that 21,752 people lived in Adams County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,787 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #50 of 72 in Wisconsin. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 20,651, the population has grown by 1,101 (+5.3%), compared with +1.3% for Wisconsin as a whole.

With 645.6 square miles of land, that is 34 people per square mile (13 per km²), placing Adams County #1,902 nationally for density and #48 in Wisconsin. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Wisconsin median is 51. Put another way, there are about 19 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 Adams County

Adams County is divided into 20 cities and towns. In Wisconsin, county subdivisions are local governments, and together they cover all of the county’s land and residents.

The most populous is Rome town, with 3,420 residents (15.7% of the county), and it is also the largest by land at 54.1 mi². The county seat, Friendship village, has 683 residents. Among those with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Rome town grew fastest since then (+13%).

Population: U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2025 subcounty estimates, counting only the part of each subdivision inside Adams County. Land: 2026 Census Gazetteer. How communities are listed.

Metropolitan area

Adams 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

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

5391053920539345393653952539645396554457544945461354921549305494354966

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 Adams County

Adams County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. It has more land than 2 of them. The largest neighbor is Portage County (800.9 mi²) and the smallest is Marquette County (455.7 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Adams County forms a block of 4,854.1 mi² of land, of which it holds 13.3%.

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

Adams County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.6 times as much. Wisconsin’s county land could hold about 84 areas the size of Adams County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 25.4 miles (40.9 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 Adams County?

Adams County has more land than 1,753 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 Adams County at #1,473 nationally by total area, 4 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 6.1%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 4.9 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 Adams 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.