Hays County area

Population and density of Hays County

The Census Bureau estimates that 304,390 people lived in Hays County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #243 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #19 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 241,064, the population has grown by 63,326 (+26.3%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 676.9 square miles of land, that is 450 people per square mile (174 per km²), placing Hays County #377 nationally for density and #17 in Texas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Texas median is 22. Put another way, there are about 1.4 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 Hays County

13 incorporated places lie at least partly in Hays County. Together they are home to 184,380 people (60.6%); the other 120,010 (39.4%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is San Marcos city, with 77,830 residents in the county (the city extends into 2 other counties). By land, Austin city is the largest at 324.8 mi² across all its counties. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Dripping Springs city grew fastest since then (+126.5%).

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

Metropolitan area

Hays County is a central county of the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 5 county equivalents have 2,620,945 residents on 4,219.9 square miles of land; Hays County accounts for 16% of the land and 11.6% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #67 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #25 by population.

ZIP codes

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

7813078610786197862078623786407865278656786637866678676787367873778739

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 Hays County

Hays County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. It has more land than 2 of them. The largest neighbor is Travis County (994.4 mi²) and the smallest is Caldwell County (544.5 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Hays County forms a block of 4,195.8 mi² of land, of which it holds 16.1%.

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

Hays County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.5 times as much. Texas’s county land could hold about 386 areas the size of Hays County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 26 miles (41.9 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 Hays County?

Hays County has more land than 1,836 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 Hays County at #1,498 nationally by total area, 112 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% — 0.9 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 Hays 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.