Water hardness in Mississippi
Mississippi has a median ambient water hardness of 21 mg/L, which is 1.2 grains per gallon and classes as soft. That is the middle of 11,461 samples across 82 counties.
This is ambient water, not tap water. These figures come from samples taken from wells, streams and springs by USGS, EPA and state agencies. Municipal utilities treat, blend and sometimes soften water before it reaches a tap, so a city supply can be considerably softer than the ground beneath it. Treat this as a good guide for a private well and an approximate one for city water. Your utility's annual water quality report gives the real number for a municipal tap, and a test strip gives it for yours.
Every monitored county in Mississippi
Ranked hardest first. The middle 50% column shows how much the samples within a county vary, which matters more than the median where a county spans two geologies.
| County | mg/L | gpg | Class | Middle 50% | Samples |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sharkey County | 224 | 13.1 | Very hard | 15 to 380 | 46 |
| Adams County | 160 | 9.3 | Hard | 70 to 290 | 115 |
| Jefferson County | 160 | 9.3 | Hard | 98 to 210 | 55 |
| Washington County | 118 | 6.9 | Moderately hard | 41 to 279 | 771 |
| Coahoma County | 117 | 6.8 | Moderately hard | 7 to 280 | 55 |
| Tunica County | 99 | 5.8 | Moderately hard | 4 to 125 | 54 |
| Sunflower County | 88 | 5.1 | Moderately hard | 23 to 220 | 70 |
| Alcorn County | 86 | 5 | Moderately hard | 26 to 140 | 125 |
| Lee County | 84 | 4.9 | Moderately hard | 54 to 110 | 196 |
| Warren County | 81 | 4.7 | Moderately hard | 34 to 147 | 906 |
| Bolivar County | 75 | 4.4 | Moderately hard | 27 to 177 | 217 |
| Union County | 67 | 3.9 | Moderately hard | 22 to 111 | 28 |
| Pontotoc County | 58 | 3.4 | Soft | 33 to 88 | 26 |
| Prentiss County | 48 | 2.8 | Soft | 24 to 115 | 71 |
| Wayne County | 45 | 2.6 | Soft | 22 to 79 | 136 |
| Clay County | 44 | 2.6 | Soft | 32 to 91 | 48 |
| Calhoun County | 42 | 2.5 | Soft | 27 to 58 | 112 |
| Newton County | 41 | 2.4 | Soft | 16 to 78 | 44 |
| Monroe County | 40 | 2.3 | Soft | 23 to 63 | 219 |
| Quitman County | 38 | 2.2 | Soft | 10 to 100 | 45 |
| Issaquena County | 36 | 2.1 | Soft | 2 to 182 | 23 |
| Lowndes County | 36 | 2.1 | Soft | 18 to 52 | 208 |
| Scott County | 35 | 2 | Soft | 12 to 44 | 61 |
| Attala County | 33 | 1.9 | Soft | 20 to 59 | 37 |
| Chickasaw County | 30 | 1.8 | Soft | 21 to 101 | 47 |
| Holmes County | 29 | 1.7 | Soft | 15 to 66 | 85 |
| Jasper County | 29 | 1.7 | Soft | 12 to 151 | 53 |
| DeSoto County | 27 | 1.6 | Soft | 19 to 53 | 45 |
| Oktibbeha County | 27 | 1.6 | Soft | 24 to 32 | 42 |
| Tippah County | 26 | 1.5 | Soft | 19 to 120 | 43 |
| Itawamba County | 25 | 1.5 | Soft | 19 to 33 | 104 |
| Leflore County | 25 | 1.5 | Soft | 20 to 36 | 280 |
| Noxubee County | 25 | 1.5 | Soft | 16 to 34 | 82 |
| Webster County | 25 | 1.5 | Soft | 16 to 49 | 47 |
| Yazoo County | 25 | 1.5 | Soft | 5 to 133 | 63 |
| Claiborne County | 23 | 1.3 | Soft | 18 to 82 | 83 |
| Hinds County | 23 | 1.3 | Soft | 10 to 44 | 299 |
| Kemper County | 22 | 1.3 | Soft | 11 to 52 | 57 |
| Lauderdale County | 22 | 1.3 | Soft | 15 to 48 | 126 |
| Neshoba County | 22 | 1.3 | Soft | 15 to 31 | 69 |
| Panola County | 22 | 1.3 | Soft | 7 to 28 | 45 |
| Tishomingo County | 21 | 1.2 | Soft | 12 to 48 | 670 |
| Greene County | 20 | 1.2 | Soft | 11 to 36 | 106 |
| Madison County | 20 | 1.2 | Soft | 12 to 31 | 56 |
| Carroll County | 19 | 1.1 | Soft | 12 to 40 | 43 |
| Lafayette County | 19 | 1.1 | Soft | 12 to 28 | 41 |
| Montgomery County | 19 | 1.1 | Soft | 9 to 42 | 39 |
| Choctaw County | 18 | 1.1 | Soft | 10 to 25 | 38 |
| Clarke County | 18 | 1.1 | Soft | 9 to 28 | 124 |
| Lawrence County | 18 | 1.1 | Soft | 13 to 22 | 95 |
| Tallahatchie County | 18 | 1.1 | Soft | 10 to 79 | 24 |
| Copiah County | 17 | 1 | Soft | 11 to 28 | 91 |
| Jackson County | 17 | 1 | Soft | 6 to 53 | 645 |
| Winston County | 17 | 1 | Soft | 7 to 36 | 40 |
| George County | 16 | 0.9 | Soft | 10 to 20 | 435 |
| Grenada County | 16 | 0.9 | Soft | 11 to 29 | 44 |
| Jones County | 16 | 0.9 | Soft | 9 to 30 | 137 |
| Leake County | 16 | 0.9 | Soft | 11 to 23 | 82 |
| Lincoln County | 16 | 0.9 | Soft | 9 to 32 | 118 |
| Pearl River County | 16 | 0.9 | Soft | 8 to 25 | 162 |
| Marshall County | 15 | 0.9 | Soft | 8 to 27 | 35 |
| Smith County | 15 | 0.9 | Soft | 9 to 28 | 66 |
| Tate County | 15 | 0.9 | Soft | 13 to 22 | 55 |
| Yalobusha County | 15 | 0.9 | Soft | 9 to 18 | 56 |
| Benton County | 14 | 0.8 | Soft | 10 to 36 | 43 |
| Forrest County | 14 | 0.8 | Soft | 8 to 26 | 195 |
| Franklin County | 14 | 0.8 | Soft | 12 to 18 | 215 |
| Marion County | 14 | 0.8 | Soft | 8 to 20 | 99 |
| Amite County | 13 | 0.8 | Soft | 8 to 26 | 27 |
| Rankin County | 11 | 0.6 | Soft | 3 to 27 | 98 |
| Covington County | 10 | 0.6 | Soft | 7 to 22 | 50 |
| Jefferson Davis County | 10 | 0.6 | Soft | 5 to 21 | 26 |
| Simpson County | 10 | 0.6 | Soft | 6 to 18 | 42 |
| Lamar County | 8 | 0.5 | Soft | 5 to 22 | 341 |
| Pike County | 8 | 0.5 | Soft | 6 to 11 | 68 |
| Walthall County | 8 | 0.5 | Soft | 6 to 11 | 51 |
| Humphreys County | 7 | 0.4 | Soft | 3 to 41 | 32 |
| Stone County | 6 | 0.4 | Soft | 4 to 16 | 35 |
| Harrison County | 5 | 0.3 | Soft | 3 to 7 | 577 |
| Perry County | 2 | 0.1 | Soft | 1 to 5 | 588 |
| Hancock County | 1 | 0.1 | Soft | 1 to 4 | 365 |
| Wilkinson County | 1 | 0.1 | Soft | 0 to 11 | 169 |
Source: Water Quality Portal (USGS, EPA and state agencies), waterqualitydata.us, retrieved 2026-09-19. 2,904,346 samples across 3,110 counties.
What this means for a household in Mississippi
At 1.2 grains per gallon, a family of four would need a softener of about 16,000 grains to regenerate roughly weekly, using around 48 lb of salt a year. Size it for your own household.
82 of these counties include well samples, so the figures are a reasonable guide for private well water there. Municipal supplies in the same counties may be softer, because utilities often blend or treat.
Hardness follows geology rather than borders. Where a county sits on limestone or dolomite the water is hard; on granite, basalt or sandstone it is soft. That is why neighbouring counties in this table can differ by a factor of several.