Gillespie County area

Population and density of Gillespie County

The Census Bureau estimates that 28,527 people lived in Gillespie County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,533 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #99 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 26,746, the population has grown by 1,781 (+6.7%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 1,058.2 square miles of land, that is 27 people per square mile (10 per km²), placing Gillespie County #2,092 nationally for density and #113 in Texas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Texas median is 22. Put another way, there are about 24 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 Gillespie County

1 incorporated place lies at least partly in Gillespie County. Together they are home to 11,893 people (41.7%); the other 16,634 (58.3%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Fredericksburg city, with 11,893 residents in the county.

Metropolitan area

Gillespie County is a central county of the Fredericksburg, TX Micropolitan Statistical Area. Gillespie County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the micro area has the same 1,058.2 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #167 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #452 by population. It belongs to the San Antonio-New Braunfels-Kerrville, TX Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

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

78028780587861878624786317867178675

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 Gillespie County

Gillespie County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. It has more land than 4 of them. The largest neighbor is Kimble County (1,251 mi²) and the smallest is Kendall County (662.5 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Gillespie County forms a block of 6,647.1 mi² of land, of which it holds 15.9%.

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

Gillespie 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 1.8 times as much land (1,948.6 mi²). Texas’s county land could hold about 247 areas the size of Gillespie County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 32.5 miles (52.4 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 Gillespie County?

Gillespie County has more land than 2,608 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 Gillespie County at #707 nationally by total area, 93 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 0.3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.8 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 Gillespie 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.