The Choctaw County Alabama map is best read as a set of low-density corridors rather than a single urban system: Butler at the administrative center, Gilbertown–Silas along the southern U.S. 84/Alabama 17 axis, Pennington–Lisman on the Tombigbee side, Toxey near Mississippi, and the Choctaw National Wildlife Refuge in the eastern floodplain. Forest, river bottoms, and long highway distances explain the county far better than town size alone.
Table of Contents
Download the Choctaw County map
The JPG preserves the selected labels and gives a compact way to compare the Butler center, southern highway corridor, Tombigbee River side, and Mississippi-border side.
- Map file: Choctaw County map
- File format: JPG
- Map coverage: County boundary and selected labeled places
Quick Facts
| State | Alabama |
|---|---|
| County | Choctaw County |
| County seat | Butler |
| 2025 population estimate | 11,904 |
| 2020 census population | 12,665 |
| 2020 land area | 913.48 sq mi |
| 2020 population density | 13.9 per sq mi |
| Main routes | U.S. 84, AL 10, AL 17 |
| Major waters | Tombigbee River, Wahalak Creek, Big Tallawampa Creek, Turkey Creek |
| Mapped places | Butler, Cullomburg, Gilbertown, Lisman, Needham, Pennington, Silas, Toxey |
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates 11,904 residents as of July 1, 2025, down 6.0 percent from the 2020 estimates base of 12,667. The 2020 census counted 12,665 residents, compared with 13,859 in 2010. The county is therefore better understood as a shrinking rural service and industrial area than as a suburban-growth market.
Choctaw County contains 913.48 square miles of land and had a 2020 density of only 13.9 people per square mile. The 2020–2024 mean commute was 33.6 minutes, an important clue to the long distances between Butler, industrial sites, small towns, and outside employment centers.
What the Map Shows
Butler is the county seat and largest incorporated community. The courthouse and county offices are concentrated near South Mulberry Avenue, while Alabama 10 and 17 make Butler the most practical central reference for travel to every side of the county.
Gilbertown anchors the south-central area. The town was laid out in 1910 and grew after railroad construction in 1912. Its larger historical importance came in 1944, when the first commercially productive oil well in Alabama was completed southwest of town.
Silas is the key southern crossroads where U.S. 84 meets Alabama 17. U.S. 84 runs east toward the Tombigbee crossing and Clarke County and west toward Mississippi, while Alabama 17 heads north through Gilbertown to Butler.
Pennington and Lisman orient the eastern half. Pennington became closely tied to rail, timber, and paper-related industry, while Lisman sits farther north in the transition between upland forest and the broad Tombigbee River lowlands.
Toxey marks the western Mississippi-border side. Its travel relationships point more directly toward eastern Mississippi than the river-oriented communities do, showing how the county line divides two different regional directions.
Needham and Cullomburg are smaller geographic anchors. Their value is not urban scale but coverage: they fill the wide rural gaps between the incorporated towns and show that the interior is settled along county roads, forest clearings, and creek valleys rather than a continuous street grid.
The eight labels work best when grouped into a Butler center, Gilbertown–Silas south, Pennington–Lisman east, and Toxey west. That regional structure is more informative than treating every label as an equivalent town.
County Layout and Location
Choctaw County occupies southwestern Alabama between the Mississippi state line and the Tombigbee River. Sumter County is to the north, Marengo and Clarke are to the east, Washington County is to the south, and Mississippi forms the entire western boundary.
Alabama 17 is the main internal north-south road. It connects Butler, Gilbertown, and Silas, tying county government to the southern U.S. 84 corridor and collecting traffic from many local roads.
U.S. 84 is the strongest regional east-west route in the southern county. It crosses the Tombigbee toward Coffeeville and Clarke County and continues west into Mississippi, giving Silas and the refuge-access area a regional role beyond Choctaw County.
Alabama 10 provides another east-west framework through Butler. It links the county seat toward Pennington and the Tombigbee side while also distributing traffic west toward the Mississippi-border countryside.
ALDOT currently publishes an April 2026 functional-classification map for Choctaw County. It is a much stronger present-day reference for U.S. 84, Alabama 17 and 10, town boundaries, and major county roads than older statewide map sheets.
The Tombigbee River is both a county boundary and a transportation-and-habitat corridor. Wide floodplain, sloughs, and bottomland forest limit direct eastward road access, so bridges and a small number of approach roads matter far more than straight-line distance.
Local Context
Choctaw County was created by the Alabama Legislature on December 29, 1847, and was named for the Choctaw people whose homeland included this part of the Southeast. Place names such as Pushmataha preserve that Indigenous connection in the modern county landscape.
Barrytown served as the first county seat before government moved to the more central Butler in 1848. Butler’s present courthouse dates from 1906–1907, while logs from the early Barrytown courthouse were later reassembled as a cabin at the Choctaw County Historical Museum in Gilbertown.
The county’s transportation history moved from river traffic to rail and then highways. Early cotton and farm products traveled down the Tombigbee toward Mobile; railroad service arrived in 1912 and supported Gilbertown and Pennington; modern regional movement now depends primarily on U.S. 84 and Alabama 17.
Forestry has remained the most persistent countywide industry. Pine uplands and bottomland hardwood support timber, sawmill, pulp, and paper activity, and the freight geography of the eastern industrial towns is closely tied to that forest resource base.
Gilbertown adds a second major industrial story. Hunt Oil began drilling in January 1944 and struck oil about a month later, producing Alabama’s first successful commercial oil well. The discovery helped lead to creation of the state Oil and Gas Board in 1945.
Choctaw National Wildlife Refuge occupies 4,218 acres along the Tombigbee River. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lists 1,802 acres of lakes, sloughs, and creeks and 2,265 acres of bottomland hardwood forest, making the refuge one of the clearest examples of the county’s river-floodplain geography.
The refuge was established under a 1964 management agreement connected with the Coffeeville Lock and Dam project. Its boundary begins about two river miles upstream from the dam, and seasonal flooding can make portions of the road system inaccessible for weeks at a time.
Wahalak, Big Tallawampa, and Turkey creeks drain the forested interior toward the Tombigbee. These tributaries create bottomlands and repeated road crossings, which helps explain why the rural road network bends around valleys and wet ground instead of forming a simple grid.
Ways to Use This Map
Begin with Butler and trace Alabama 17 north-south. Place Gilbertown and Silas along that line, then add U.S. 84 east-west. That gives the county an immediate central-and-southern transportation framework.
Next group Pennington and Lisman with the Tombigbee side and place Toxey against Mississippi. This separates an eastern river-and-industry zone from a western border-and-rural zone that faces a different set of outside destinations.
Finally add the Choctaw refuge and major creek systems. The seasonal floodplain east and the pine-dominated uplands farther west explain why population, roads, industry, and public land are distributed unevenly across the county.
- Use Butler as the county-government and Alabama 10/17 reference point.
- Group Gilbertown and Silas along the U.S. 84, rail, and oil-history corridor.
- Read Pennington and Lisman as the Tombigbee and forest-industry side.
- Use Toxey and the Mississippi line to orient western long-distance travel.
- Overlay Choctaw NWR, creeks, and bottomland to understand the eastern physical landscape.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the map show every city and community?
No. The current file labels Butler, Cullomburg, Gilbertown, Lisman, Needham, Pennington, Silas, and Toxey. Other places such as Pushmataha, Bladon Springs, and Barrytown are important to local history, but the article keeps the spatial discussion centered on labels that actually appear on the map.
Can the map be printed?
Yes, the downloadable JPG can be placed into a print layout. Check its actual pixel dimensions against the intended paper size, and use ALDOT or county GIS data when a project requires local-road, parcel, or engineering-level detail.
What does the download include?
The button opens the single Choctaw County JPG used for this article. It is designed around the county boundary and selected labels; the fuller road, river, industrial, and historical context is supplied by the article and linked official sources.
Related Alabama County Maps
Sources
- U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts
- Choctaw County official website
- ALDOT Highway Functional Classification Maps
- U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service: Choctaw National Wildlife Refuge
- U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: Black Warrior–Tombigbee Waterway
- Encyclopedia of Alabama: Choctaw County
- Encyclopedia of Alabama: Gilbertown
- Encyclopedia of Alabama: Butler
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