Brazos County area

Population and density of Brazos County

The Census Bureau estimates that 249,088 people lived in Brazos County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #298 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #24 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 233,840, the population has grown by 15,248 (+6.5%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 586.2 square miles of land, that is 425 people per square mile (164 per km²), placing Brazos County #390 nationally for density and #18 in Texas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Texas median is 22. Put another way, there are about 1.5 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 Brazos County

5 incorporated places lie at least partly in Brazos County. Together they are home to 220,091 people (88.4%); the other 28,997 (11.6%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is College Station city, with 127,472 residents in the county. The county seat, Bryan city, has 91,996 residents. By land, Bryan city is the largest at 56.2 mi². Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Bryan city grew fastest since then (+9.6%).

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

Metropolitan area

Brazos County is a central county of the College Station-Bryan, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 3 county equivalents have 287,476 residents on 2,100.4 square miles of land; Brazos County accounts for 27.9% of the land and 86.6% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #151 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #176 by population.

ZIP codes

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

7780177802778037780777808778407784377845778597786677868

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 Brazos County

Brazos County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Robertson County (855.2 mi²) and the smallest is Madison County (466.1 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Brazos County forms a block of 3,958.2 mi² of land, of which it holds 14.8%.

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

Brazos County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.8 times as much. Texas’s county land could hold about 446 areas the size of Brazos County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 24.2 miles (39 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 Brazos County?

Brazos County has more land than 1,546 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 Brazos County at #1,775 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 0.9%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.3 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 Brazos 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.