Deaf Smith County area

Population and density of Deaf Smith County

The Census Bureau estimates that 18,626 people lived in Deaf Smith County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,962 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #131 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 18,592, the population has grown by 34 (+0.2%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 1,496.8 square miles of land, that is 12 people per square mile (4.8 per km²), placing Deaf Smith County #2,560 nationally for density and #160 in Texas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Texas median is 22. Put another way, there are about 51 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 Deaf Smith County

1 incorporated place lies at least partly in Deaf Smith County. Together they are home to 14,976 people (80.4%); the other 3,650 (19.6%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Hereford city, with 14,976 residents in the county.

Metropolitan area

Deaf Smith County is a central county of the Hereford, TX Micropolitan Statistical Area. Deaf Smith County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the micro area has the same 1,496.8 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #110 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #527 by population.

ZIP codes

6 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Deaf Smith County; 2 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

790017902579035790457909279098

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 Deaf Smith County

Deaf Smith County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents, including 2 in New Mexico. It has more land than 4 of them. The largest neighbor is Quay County (2,874 mi²) and the smallest is Parmer County (880.8 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Deaf Smith County forms a block of 9,964.8 mi² of land, of which it holds 15%.

How big is Deaf Smith County compared with U.S. states?

Deaf Smith County has more land than 1 of the 50 states. It is about 1.4 times the land area of Rhode Island (1,033.9 mi²), while Delaware, the next larger state, has 1.3 times as much land (1,948.6 mi²). Texas’s county land could hold about 175 areas the size of Deaf Smith County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 38.7 miles (62.3 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 Deaf Smith County?

Deaf Smith County has more land than 2,821 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 Deaf Smith County at #454 nationally by total area, 53 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 Deaf Smith 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.