De Baca County area

Population and density of De Baca County

The Census Bureau estimates that 1,647 people lived in De Baca County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #3,149 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #32 of 33 in New Mexico. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 1,701, the population has declined by 54 (−3.2%), compared with +0.4% for New Mexico as a whole.

With 2,323.1 square miles of land, that is 0.71 people per square mile (0.27 per km²), placing De Baca County #3,180 nationally for density and #31 in New Mexico. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the New Mexico median is 6.9. Put another way, there are about 903 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 De Baca County

1 incorporated place lies at least partly in De Baca County. Together they are home to 852 people (51.7%); the other 795 (48.3%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Fort Sumner village, with 852 residents in the county.

Metropolitan area

De Baca 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

3 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in De Baca County, and each lies mostly inside the county.

881198813488136

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are the Census Bureau’s approximations of USPS ZIP Code service areas, from the 2020 Census relationship files. Post-office-box and single-address ZIP Codes have no tabulation area.

Counties bordering De Baca County

De Baca County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. Each of them has more land than De Baca County. The largest neighbor is Chaves County (6,067.2 mi²) and the smallest is Roosevelt County (2,446.1 mi²). Together with its neighbors, De Baca County forms a block of 21,571.2 mi² of land, of which it holds 10.8%.

How big is De Baca County compared with U.S. states?

De Baca County has more land than 2 of the 50 states. It is about 1.2 times the land area of Delaware (1,948.6 mi²), while Connecticut, the next larger state, has 2.1 times as much land (4,842.5 mi²). New Mexico’s county land could hold about 52 areas the size of De Baca County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 48.2 miles (77.6 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 De Baca County?

De Baca County has more land than 2,982 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 De Baca County at #262 nationally by total area, 22 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 0.5%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.7 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 De Baca 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.