Lake Wales, Florida

Lake Wales population, 2020 to 2024

Lake Wales added 1,508 residents from July 2020 to July 2024, a change of +9.3%. In the latest year it moved by +990. Among 229 Florida places of 5,000 or more, that growth ranks 61st; the median place changed by +4.8%. The median place of 5,000+ in Florida has 21,954 people, so Lake Wales is 81% of it.

Lake Wales covers 20.30 square miles of land and 1.71 of water, for 877 people per square mile of land. The median Florida place of 5,000+ has 2,498, so Lake Wales is less dense than the typical town.

What county Lake Wales is in

All of Lake Wales's residents live in Polk County, which had 852,878 residents in 2024. Lake Wales holds 2.1% of the county's population. The shaded shape is on the map above; dots mark the eight nearest places.

ZIP codes in Lake Wales

3 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs) overlap Lake Wales by at least 10% of the ZCTA's or the city's land: 33853, 33859, 33898. ZCTAs are Census approximations of USPS ZIP code delivery areas. The list comes from the 2020 ZCTA to place relationship file, so a city that annexed land after 2020 may reach into ZIP codes not listed here.

Where Lake Wales is

The Census internal point of Lake Wales is at 27.920700, -81.599500. Tallahassee, the capital, is 237.5 miles NW in a straight line. The nearest larger place is Winter Haven, FL (59,975 people), 11.9 miles away. The nearest city of 100,000 or more is Lakeland, FL, 23.6 miles away.

Daylight in Lake Wales

At 27.92° N, Lake Wales gets about 13 h 55 min of daylight around the June solstice and 10 h 22 min around the December solstice, a swing of 3 h 32 min. Figures are sunrise to sunset from the SunCalc model for June 21 and December 21, 2026.

Places near Lake Wales

The eight nearest incorporated places of 1,000+ in Florida, measured between internal points. The closest is Dundee, 6.7 miles away, with 6,275 people.