Pierce County area

Population and density of Pierce County

The Census Bureau estimates that 43,519 people lived in Pierce County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,145 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #35 of 72 in Wisconsin. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 42,203, the population has grown by 1,316 (+3.1%), compared with +1.3% for Wisconsin as a whole.

With 574 square miles of land, that is 76 people per square mile (29 per km²), placing Pierce County #1,202 nationally for density and #27 in Wisconsin. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Wisconsin median is 51. Put another way, there are about 8.4 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 Pierce County

Pierce 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 River Falls city, with 12,914 residents (29.7% of the county). The largest by land is River Falls town, at 43.7 mi², or 7.6% of the county’s land. The county seat, Ellsworth village, has 3,336 residents. Among those with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Oak Grove town grew fastest since then (+8.6%).

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

Metropolitan area

Pierce County is an outlying county of the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 15 county equivalents have 3,790,295 residents on 7,047.6 square miles of land; Pierce County accounts for 8.1% of the land and 1.1% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #26 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #16 by population. It belongs to the Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

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

54002540035401154014540215402254721547235474054750547615476754769

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 Pierce County

Pierce County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents, including 3 in Minnesota. It has more land than 3 of them. The largest neighbor is Dunn County (850.2 mi²) and the smallest is Pepin County (232 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Pierce County forms a block of 4,082.4 mi² of land, of which it holds 14.1%.

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

Pierce County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.8 times as much. Wisconsin’s county land could hold about 94 areas the size of Pierce County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 24 miles (38.6 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 Pierce County?

Pierce County has more land than 1,484 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 Pierce County at #1,766 nationally by total area, 28 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 3.2%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 2 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 Pierce 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.