Texas County area

Population and density of Texas County

The Census Bureau estimates that 25,994 people lived in Texas County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,631 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #41 of 115 in Missouri. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 24,485, the population has grown by 1,509 (+6.2%), compared with +1.9% for Missouri as a whole.

With 1,177.3 square miles of land, that is 22 people per square mile (8.5 per km²), placing Texas County #2,245 nationally for density and #76 in Missouri. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Missouri median is 31. Put another way, there are about 29 acres of land per resident.

U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 population estimates. Estimates are revised each year and are not decennial census counts. Density divides the whole population by the whole county’s land area, so it describes an average, not how settlement is distributed within the county. Population sources and methods.

Cities and towns in Texas County

7 incorporated places lie at least partly in Texas County. Together they are home to 8,373 people (32.2%); the other 17,621 (67.8%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Licking city, with 2,958 residents in the county. The county seat, Houston city, has 2,281 residents. By land, Cabool city is the largest at 4.025 mi². Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Houston city grew fastest since then (+9.6%).

Population: U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2025 subcounty estimates, counting only the part of each place inside Texas County. Land: 2026 Census Gazetteer, for the whole place even where it extends into other counties. How communities are listed.

Metropolitan area

Texas County is not part of any metropolitan or micropolitan statistical area in the Office of Management and Budget’s July 2023 delineation; 1,306 other county equivalents are also outside one. These areas are built around an urban core of at least 10,000 people plus the counties tied to it by commuting, so counties outside them are generally rural.

ZIP codes

21 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Texas County; 14 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

654366544465464654686547965483654846554265548655526555565557655606556465570655716558965660656896571165793

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are the Census Bureau’s approximations of USPS ZIP Code service areas, from the 2020 Census relationship files. Lighter codes have less than half of their land in this county. Post-office-box and single-address ZIP Codes have no tabulation area.

Counties bordering Texas County

Texas County shares a land border with 8 county equivalents. It has more land than every one of them. The largest neighbor is Shannon County (1,003.8 mi²) and the smallest is Pulaski County (547.2 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Texas County forms a block of 7,340.1 mi² of land, of which it holds 16%.

How big is Texas County compared with U.S. states?

Texas County has more land than 1 of the 50 states. It is about 1.1 times the land area of Rhode Island (1,033.9 mi²), while Delaware, the next larger state, has 1.7 times as much land (1,948.6 mi²). Missouri’s county land could hold about 58 areas the size of Texas County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 34.3 miles (55.2 km) on each side. Real county shapes are rarely square, so this is a scale reference rather than a width or driving distance.

State figures are the sums of each state’s county-equivalent land measurements in the same Census release, so states and counties are compared on the same basis. Published state totals can differ slightly because of rounding. Compare all states · Counties bigger than entire states.

What stands out about Texas County?

Texas County has more land than 2,702 of the other 3,221 county equivalents in the dataset.

A median is the middle county-equivalent measurement, not the average of the largest and smallest. All three bars use the same linear scale. Very small areas may appear as a thin sliver; the labels retain their values.

Does including water change its rank?

Using land plus water places Texas County at #602 nationally by total area, 82 places farther from the top than its land rank. Other county equivalents gain more area when their water measurements are included.

Its water share is 0.2%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1 percentage points lower. This describes the statistical geography’s land/water mix, not flood exposure or developable land.

Closest positions in the national land ranking

These entries sit immediately beside Texas County in the national ranking. They can be in different states and are not necessarily geographic neighbors.

Calculated from the same Census release as the area table. Total-area order uses original ALAND + AWATER; water shares and chart labels use published square miles. Calculation details.