US Counties With the Highest Population (WONDER)
401 US counties ranked by population (wonder), from highest to lowest. First are Liberty County, TX (1104.87), Ellis County, TX (1092.69) and Montgomery County, TX (1086.49). The middle one of the 401 has 1003.90.
What this measures
How many people live here, as CDC WONDER counts them. Its yearly homicide rate is per this number of residents. Source: CDC WONDER mortality.
This is a count, so it is ranked per 1,000 residents. Ranked by the raw total, it would just list the biggest counties.
For most measures, a national ranking mostly sorts places by income and by how urban they are. Each county’s own page compares it with the 50 counties most like it instead, which is often the fairer view.
The 100 highest counties
Every state, highest first
Each state’s own published figure, not an average of its counties.
| Rank | State | Per 1,000 residents |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Idaho | 1037.71 |
| 2 | Florida | 1031.11 |
| 3 | South Carolina | 1030.85 |
| 4 | Texas | 1029.11 |
| 5 | Utah | 1025.97 |
| 6 | Delaware | 1025.88 |
| 7 | Montana | 1025.09 |
| 8 | North Carolina | 1023.69 |
| 9 | Arizona | 1022.44 |
| 10 | South Dakota | 1022.38 |
| 11 | Tennessee | 1020.10 |
| 12 | Georgia | 1019.07 |
| 13 | Nevada | 1016.94 |
| 14 | Oklahoma | 1014.65 |
| 15 | Maine | 1013.29 |
| 16 | Arkansas | 1011.56 |
| 17 | Colorado | 1011.50 |
| 18 | Alabama | 1010.73 |
| 19 | New Hampshire | 1010.28 |
| 20 | District of Columbia | 1010.25 |
| 21 | Washington | 1009.29 |
| 22 | Wyoming | 1007.42 |
| 23 | Indiana | 1007.41 |
| 24 | Virginia | 1006.72 |
| 25 | Nebraska | 1006.34 |
| 26 | North Dakota | 1005.86 |
| 27 | Connecticut | 1005.24 |
| 28 | Missouri | 1004.54 |
| 29 | Minnesota | 1004.23 |
| 30 | Iowa | 1003.46 |
| 31 | Kentucky | 1003.43 |
| 32 | Vermont | 1003.42 |
| 33 | Wisconsin | 1003.22 |
| 34 | New Jersey | 1002.57 |
| 35 | Maryland | 1001.55 |
| 36 | Massachusetts | 1001.29 |
| 37 | Kansas | 1001.00 |
| 38 | Rhode Island | 1000.58 |
| 39 | Ohio | 1000.51 |
| 40 | New Mexico | 999.83 |
| 41 | Alaska | 999.24 |
| 42 | Oregon | 998.75 |
| 43 | Michigan | 998.55 |
| 44 | Pennsylvania | 998.11 |
| 45 | Mississippi | 996.02 |
| 46 | California | 992.92 |
| 47 | Hawaii | 992.71 |
| 48 | West Virginia | 991.95 |
| 49 | Louisiana | 989.76 |
| 50 | Illinois | 988.76 |
| 51 | New York | 984.84 |
More on population (wonder)
- US Counties With the Lowest Population (WONDER)
- Population (WONDER) by US county: map by year and what it goes with
A ranking describes places, not the people in them, and a high or low place does not by itself say why. All US rankings.