Brown County area

Population and density of Brown County

The Census Bureau estimates that 275,803 people lived in Brown County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #270 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #4 of 72 in Wisconsin. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 268,736, the population has grown by 7,067 (+2.6%), compared with +1.3% for Wisconsin as a whole.

With 530.1 square miles of land, that is 520 people per square mile (201 per km²), placing Brown County #330 nationally for density and #5 in Wisconsin. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Wisconsin median is 51. Put another way, there are about 1.2 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 Brown County

Brown County is divided into 25 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 Green Bay city, with 106,675 residents (38.7% of the county), and it is also the largest by land at 45.5 mi². Among those with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Denmark village grew fastest since then (+18.9%).

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

Metropolitan area

Brown County is a central county of the Green Bay, WI Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 3 county equivalents have 336,756 residents on 1,870 square miles of land; Brown County accounts for 28.3% of the land and 81.9% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #167 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #162 by population. It belongs to the Green Bay-Shawano, WI Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

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

54110541155412654130541555416254165541735418054208542175422954301543025430354304543075431154313

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 Brown County

Brown County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. It has more land than 2 of them. The largest neighbor is Oconto County (997.5 mi²) and the smallest is Calumet County (318.3 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Brown County forms a block of 4,308.4 mi² of land, of which it holds 12.3%.

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

Brown 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 times as much. Wisconsin’s county land could hold about 102 areas the size of Brown County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 23 miles (37.1 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 Brown County?

Brown County has more land than 1,245 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 Brown County at #1,695 nationally by total area, 282 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 13.9%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 12.7 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 Brown 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.