Alabama county map

How Alabama’s counties are laid out

Alabama’s 67 counties cover 52,420 square miles, so the average county is a little under 800 square miles. The oldest counties sit in the south-west around Mobile Bay and along the Tombigbee and Alabama rivers, where the first American settlers arrived from Mississippi Territory; the Tennessee Valley counties in the north (Madison, Limestone, Lauderdale, Morgan) were organised next, in 1808–1818. The last large block of counties was created after the Creek cession of 1832 opened the east-central part of the state.

Several county names record the state’s history: Autauga, Choctaw, Coosa, Etowah, Talladega and Tuscaloosa are Native American names; Bibb, Clay, Calhoun, Jackson, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and Washington honour politicians; Baldwin, Blount, Butler, Dale, Dallas and Pickens honour soldiers. Winston County, in the hill country north-west of Birmingham, is remembered for opposing secession in 1861.

Every Alabama county elects a county commission and a probate judge. Two cities straddle county lines in an unusual way: Birmingham lies almost entirely in Jefferson County but spills into Shelby County, and Huntsville, the state’s largest city since 2020, extends from Madison County into Limestone and Morgan counties. Alabama has no independent cities and no consolidated city-counties.

All 67 counties of Alabama

Five county facts

• Largest by area: Baldwin County, about 2,000 square miles including Mobile Bay and the Gulf shore. Its seat, Bay Minette, is a small town; the county’s growth is on the coast around Daphne, Fairhope, Foley and Gulf Shores.
• Smallest by area: Etowah County around Gadsden, about 550 square miles, in the north-east on the Coosa River.
• Most populous: Jefferson County, seat Birmingham, with about 675,000 people in 2020 — roughly one Alabamian in seven. Madison County (Huntsville) and Mobile County follow, each above 400,000. Montgomery County, home of the capital, is fourth.
• Least populous: Greene County, seat Eutaw, in the Black Belt west of Tuscaloosa, with fewer than 8,000 people. Its neighbours Sumter, Perry, Wilcox and Lowndes are among the poorest and least populated counties in the state.
• Oldest and newest: Washington County, organised in 1800 under Mississippi Territory, is the oldest — it predates the state by 19 years. Houston County (Dothan), created in 1903 from parts of Dale, Geneva and Henry, is the newest. Alabama has no independent cities.

Reading the map

Press Streets and zoom in on the highlighted state to see county lines. The northern counties follow the Tennessee River valley and the tail of the Appalachians; the straight-sided counties of the Wiregrass in the south-east were laid out on surveyed land rather than rivers. The Black Belt — a curving band of dark, fertile soil running from Sumter County in the west through Dallas and Montgomery to Russell County on the Georgia line — contains most of the small, rural, historically cotton-growing counties. Mobile and Baldwin counties, separated by Mobile Bay, are the only two on the Gulf of Mexico. Alabama lies wholly in the Central Time Zone; only Phenix City in Russell County informally keeps Eastern time to match Columbus, Georgia, across the Chattahoochee.

Related maps

• Alabama map — cities, borders and geography.
• Blank Alabama map and printable Alabama map.
• Montgomery, the state capital, in Montgomery County.
• Neighbouring county maps: Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi.
• East South Central states · the South · Central Time Zone.
• Geography: Gulf of Mexico, Appalachian Mountains, US coastlines.
• All US county maps.