Cherokee County area

Population and density of Cherokee County

The Census Bureau estimates that 53,337 people lived in Cherokee County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #985 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #72 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 50,543, the population has grown by 2,794 (+5.5%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 1,053 square miles of land, that is 51 people per square mile (20 per km²), placing Cherokee County #1,537 nationally for density and #81 in Texas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Texas median is 22. Put another way, there are about 13 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 Cherokee County

10 incorporated places lie at least partly in Cherokee County. Together they are home to 24,156 people (45.3%); the other 29,181 (54.7%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Jacksonville city, with 14,658 residents in the county. The county seat, Rusk city, has 5,568 residents. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Jacksonville city grew fastest since then (+4.6%).

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

Metropolitan area

Cherokee County is a central county of the Jacksonville, TX Micropolitan Statistical Area. Cherokee County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the micro area has the same 1,053 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #168 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #204 by population. It belongs to the Tyler-Jacksonville, TX Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

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

756547575775759757647576675780757847578575789759257596975976

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 Cherokee County

Cherokee County shares a land border with 7 county equivalents. It has more land than 5 of them. The largest neighbor is Houston County (1,231 mi²) and the smallest is Angelina County (797.9 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Cherokee County forms a block of 7,810.3 mi² of land, of which it holds 13.5%.

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

Cherokee 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 1.9 times as much land (1,948.6 mi²). Texas’s county land could hold about 248 areas the size of Cherokee County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 32.4 miles (52.2 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 Cherokee County?

Cherokee County has more land than 2,603 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 Cherokee County at #706 nationally by total area, 87 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 Cherokee 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.