Galveston County area

Population and density of Galveston County

The Census Bureau estimates that 372,207 people lived in Galveston County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #209 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #16 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 350,682, the population has grown by 21,525 (+6.1%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 379.4 square miles of land, that is 981 people per square mile (379 per km²), placing Galveston County #193 nationally for density and #10 in Texas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Texas median is 22. Put another way, there are about 0.652 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 Galveston County

13 incorporated places lie at least partly in Galveston County. Together they are home to 333,540 people (89.6%); the other 38,667 (10.4%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is League City city, with 117,255 residents in the county (the city extends into 1 other county). The county seat, Galveston city, has 53,636 residents. By land, Texas City city is the largest at 66.3 mi² across all its counties. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Kemah city grew fastest since then (+71.5%).

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

Metropolitan area

Galveston County is an outlying 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; Galveston County accounts for 4.3% of the land and 4.7% 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

19 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Galveston County; 18 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

77510775117751777518775397754677550775517755477555775637756577568775737759077591776177762377650

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 Galveston County

Galveston County shares a land border with 3 county equivalents. Each of them has more land than Galveston County. The largest neighbor is Harris County (1,707.3 mi²) and the smallest is Chambers County (597.2 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Galveston County forms a block of 4,047.3 mi² of land, of which it holds 9.4%.

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

Galveston County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.7 times as much. Texas’s county land could hold about 689 areas the size of Galveston County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 19.5 miles (31.3 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 Galveston County?

Galveston County has more land than 616 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 Galveston County at #1,038 nationally by total area, 1,568 places closer to the top than its land rank. The water assigned to this geography moves it ahead of some county equivalents with more land.

Its water share is 56.6%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 55.4 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 Galveston 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.