Callahan County area

Population and density of Callahan County

The Census Bureau estimates that 14,491 people lived in Callahan County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,189 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #141 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 13,706, the population has grown by 785 (+5.7%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 899.4 square miles of land, that is 16 people per square mile (6.2 per km²), placing Callahan County #2,436 nationally for density and #145 in Texas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Texas median is 22. Put another way, there are about 40 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 Callahan County

4 incorporated places lie at least partly in Callahan County. Together they are home to 6,564 people (45.3%); the other 7,927 (54.7%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Clyde city, with 4,024 residents in the county. The county seat, Baird city, has 1,532 residents. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Clyde city grew fastest since then (+5.7%).

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

Metropolitan area

Callahan County is an outlying county of the Abilene, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 3 county equivalents have 185,429 residents on 2,743.5 square miles of land; Callahan County accounts for 32.8% of the land and 7.8% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #111 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #248 by population. It belongs to the Abilene-Sweetwater, TX Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

9 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Callahan County; 4 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

764377644376464764697950479510795417960179602

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 Callahan County

Callahan County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. Each of them has more land than Callahan County. The largest neighbor is Coleman County (1,263 mi²) and the smallest is Shackelford County (914.3 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Callahan County forms a block of 6,791.7 mi² of land, of which it holds 13.2%.

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

Callahan 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 290 areas the size of Callahan County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 30 miles (48.3 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 Callahan County?

Callahan County has more land than 2,363 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 Callahan County at #967 nationally by total area, 108 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 0.2%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 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 Callahan 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.