Valencia County area

Population and density of Valencia County

The Census Bureau estimates that 82,013 people lived in Valencia County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #723 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #6 of 33 in New Mexico. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 76,335, the population has grown by 5,678 (+7.4%), compared with +0.4% for New Mexico as a whole.

With 1,066.7 square miles of land, that is 77 people per square mile (30 per km²), placing Valencia County #1,188 nationally for density and #4 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 8.3 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 Valencia County

5 incorporated places lie at least partly in Valencia County. Together they are home to 40,787 people (49.7%); the other 41,226 (50.3%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Los Lunas village, with 20,572 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Los Lunas village grew fastest since then (+18.3%).

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

Metropolitan area

Valencia County is an outlying county of the Albuquerque, NM Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 4 county equivalents have 925,279 residents on 9,283.8 square miles of land; Valencia County accounts for 11.5% of the land and 8.9% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #7 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #64 by population. It belongs to the Albuquerque-Santa Fe-Los Alamos, NM Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

9 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Valencia County; 5 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

870028700687023870268703187042870608706287068

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 Valencia County

Valencia County shares a land border with 4 county equivalents. Each of them has more land than Valencia County. The largest neighbor is Socorro County (6,646.4 mi²) and the smallest is Bernalillo County (1,161.7 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Valencia County forms a block of 16,760 mi² of land, of which it holds 6.4%.

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

Valencia County has more land than 1 of the 50 states. It is about 1 times the land area of Rhode Island (1,033.9 mi²), while Delaware, the next larger state, has 1.8 times as much land (1,948.6 mi²). New Mexico’s county land could hold about 114 areas the size of Valencia County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 32.7 miles (52.6 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 Valencia County?

Valencia County has more land than 2,616 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 Valencia County at #705 nationally by total area, 99 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 0.1%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1.1 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 Valencia 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.