Lincoln County area

Population and density of Lincoln County

The Census Bureau estimates that 28,403 people lived in Lincoln County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,538 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #45 of 72 in Wisconsin. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 28,412, the population has declined by 9 (−0%), compared with +1.3% for Wisconsin as a whole.

With 878.8 square miles of land, that is 32 people per square mile (12 per km²), placing Lincoln County #1,938 nationally for density and #50 in Wisconsin. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Wisconsin median is 51. Put another way, there are about 20 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 Lincoln County

Lincoln County is divided into 18 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 Merrill city, with 9,389 residents (33.1% of the county). The largest by land is Corning town, at 146.4 mi², or 16.7% of the county’s land. Among those with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Bradley town grew fastest since then (+1.9%).

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

Metropolitan area

Lincoln 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

7 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Lincoln County; 4 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

54435544425445254459544875450154564

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 Lincoln County

Lincoln County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Marathon County (1,545.2 mi²) and the smallest is Langlade County (870.7 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Lincoln County forms a block of 6,637.8 mi² of land, of which it holds 13.2%.

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

Lincoln County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.2 times as much. Wisconsin’s county land could hold about 62 areas the size of Lincoln County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 29.6 miles (47.7 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 Lincoln County?

Lincoln County has more land than 2,311 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 Lincoln County at #943 nationally by total area, 32 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 3.1%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1.9 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 Lincoln 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.