Bosque County area

Population and density of Bosque County

The Census Bureau estimates that 18,918 people lived in Bosque County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,943 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #127 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 18,232, the population has grown by 686 (+3.8%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 983 square miles of land, that is 19 people per square mile (7.4 per km²), placing Bosque County #2,352 nationally for density and #138 in Texas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Texas median is 22. Put another way, there are about 33 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 Bosque County

7 incorporated places lie at least partly in Bosque County. Together they are home to 8,173 people (43.2%); the other 10,745 (56.8%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Clifton city, with 3,523 residents in the county. The county seat, Meridian city, has 1,403 residents. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Valley Mills city grew fastest since then (+2.8%).

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

Metropolitan area

Bosque County is an outlying county of the Waco, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 3 county equivalents have 308,807 residents on 2,785.2 square miles of land; Bosque County accounts for 35.3% of the land and 6.1% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #109 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #172 by population.

ZIP codes

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

7604376457766337663476637766497665276665766717668976690

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 Bosque County

Bosque County shares a land border with 7 county equivalents. It has more land than 4 of them. The largest neighbor is Erath County (1,083.2 mi²) and the smallest is Somervell County (186.2 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Bosque County forms a block of 6,861.2 mi² of land, of which it holds 14.3%.

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

Bosque County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.1 times as much. Texas’s county land could hold about 266 areas the size of Bosque County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 31.4 miles (50.5 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 Bosque County?

Bosque County has more land than 2,521 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 Bosque County at #772 nationally by total area, 71 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 2%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.8 percentage points higher. 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 Bosque 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.