Panola County

Also known as Panola County, Mississippi, Panola County, MS

county in Mississippi, United States

Key facts

Country: United States
State: Mississippi
Founded: February 9, 1836
Named after: name of Cotton in the Choctaw language
Seat: Batesville and Sardis
Largest city: Batesville
Total: 705 sq mi (1,830 km )
Land: 685 sq mi (1,770 km )
Water: 20 sq mi (52 km ) 2.8%
Estimate 2025: 32,691
Density: 48.5/sq mi (18.7/km )
Time zone: UTC−6 ( Central )
Summer dst

~11 min read

Article

Panola County is a county located in the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2020 census, the population was 33,208. Its county seats are Sardis and Batesville. The county is located just east of the Mississippi Delta in the northern part of the state. It is bisected by the Tallahatchie River flowing to the southwest; travel difficulties because of the river resulted in two county seats being established.

Panola is the anglicization of ponolo, a word meaning "thread" in both old Choctaw and Chickasaw and "cotton" in modern Choctaw. This was one of twelve large counties organized from the Chickasaw Cession of 1832.