Cozad is a city in Dawson County, Nebraska, United States. As of the 2020 census, Cozad had a population of 3,988. The town is on the Great Plains of central Nebraska, along the Union Pacific Railroad and U.S. Route 30, just north of the Platte River. The 100th meridian, which roughly marks the eastward boundary of the arid plains, passes just west of the town as is marked nearby on a prominent sign across U.S. 30. In the early 1860s, the meridian was a stop along the Pony Express.