Fort Bend County area

Population and density of Fort Bend County

The Census Bureau estimates that 975,191 people lived in Fort Bend County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #56 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #8 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 823,997, the population has grown by 151,194 (+18.3%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 862.1 square miles of land, that is 1,131 people per square mile (437 per km²), placing Fort Bend County #161 nationally for density and #8 in Texas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Texas median is 22. Put another way, there are about 0.566 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 Fort Bend County

20 incorporated places lie at least partly in Fort Bend County. Together they are home to 393,532 people (40.4%); the other 581,659 (59.6%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Sugar Land city, with 107,726 residents in the county. The county seat, Richmond city, has 13,389 residents. By land, Houston city is the largest at 640.8 mi² across all its counties. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Fulshear city grew fastest since then (+297.3%).

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

Metropolitan area

Fort Bend County is a central county of the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 10 county equivalents have 7,904,627 residents on 8,839.2 square miles of land; Fort Bend County accounts for 9.8% of the land and 12.3% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #9 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #5 by population. It belongs to the Houston-Pasadena, TX Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

35 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Fort Bend County; 21 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

7703177053770827708377085770997740677407774177742077423774307743577441774447745077451774597746177464774697747177476774777747877479774817748577489774937749477498775457758377584

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 Fort Bend County

Fort Bend County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. It has more land than 2 of them. The largest neighbor is Harris County (1,707.3 mi²) and the smallest is Waller County (513.4 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Fort Bend County forms a block of 6,178.8 mi² of land, of which it holds 14%.

How big is Fort Bend County compared with U.S. states?

Fort Bend County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.2 times as much. Texas’s county land could hold about 303 areas the size of Fort Bend County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 29.4 miles (47.3 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 Fort Bend County?

Fort Bend County has more land than 2,262 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 Fort Bend County at #1,016 nationally by total area, 56 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 2.6%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1.5 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 Fort Bend 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.