Marquette County area

Population and density of Marquette County

The Census Bureau estimates that 15,927 people lived in Marquette County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,105 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #63 of 72 in Wisconsin. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 15,595, the population has grown by 332 (+2.1%), compared with +1.3% for Wisconsin as a whole.

With 455.7 square miles of land, that is 35 people per square mile (13 per km²), placing Marquette County #1,875 nationally for density and #44 in Wisconsin. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Wisconsin median is 51. Put another way, there are about 18 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 Marquette County

Marquette County is divided into 19 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 Packwaukee town, with 1,497 residents (9.4% of the county). The largest by land is Buffalo town, at 48.6 mi², or 10.7% of the county’s land. The county seat, Montello city, has 1,447 residents. Among those with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Buffalo town grew fastest since then (+3.6%).

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

Metropolitan area

Marquette 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 Marquette County; 7 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

5390153920539265393053946539495395253953539545396454930549605496854982

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 Marquette County

Marquette County shares a land border with 4 county equivalents. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Columbia County (765.6 mi²) and the smallest is Green Lake County (349.5 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Marquette County forms a block of 2,842.7 mi² of land, of which it holds 16%.

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

Marquette County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.3 times as much. Wisconsin’s county land could hold about 119 areas the size of Marquette County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 21.3 miles (34.4 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 Marquette County?

Marquette County has more land than 975 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 Marquette County at #2,306 nationally by total area, 59 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 1.9%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.7 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 Marquette 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.