Roosevelt County area

Population and density of Roosevelt County

The Census Bureau estimates that 18,615 people lived in Roosevelt County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,963 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #21 of 33 in New Mexico. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 19,193, the population has declined by 578 (−3%), compared with +0.4% for New Mexico as a whole.

With 2,446.1 square miles of land, that is 7.6 people per square mile (2.9 per km²), placing Roosevelt County #2,737 nationally for density and #16 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 84 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 Roosevelt County

5 incorporated places lie at least partly in Roosevelt County. Together they are home to 12,155 people (65.3%); the other 6,460 (34.7%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Portales city, with 11,734 residents in the county.

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

Metropolitan area

Roosevelt County is an outlying county of the Clovis, NM Micropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 65,270 residents on 3,851.6 square miles of land; Roosevelt County accounts for 63.5% of the land and 28.5% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #39 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #139 by population.

ZIP codes

12 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Roosevelt County; 8 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

881018811388115881168811888124881258812688130881328813488135

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 Roosevelt County

Roosevelt County shares a land border with 7 county equivalents, including 2 in Texas. It has more land than 4 of them. The largest neighbor is Chaves County (6,067.2 mi²) and the smallest is Cochran County (775.1 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Roosevelt County forms a block of 21,109.4 mi² of land, of which it holds 11.6%.

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

Roosevelt County has more land than 2 of the 50 states. It is about 1.3 times the land area of Delaware (1,948.6 mi²), while Connecticut, the next larger state, has 2 times as much land (4,842.5 mi²). New Mexico’s county land could hold about 50 areas the size of Roosevelt County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 49.5 miles (79.6 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 Roosevelt County?

Roosevelt County has more land than 2,999 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 Roosevelt County at #239 nationally by total area, 16 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 0.3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.9 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 Roosevelt 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.