Henderson County area

Population and density of Henderson County

The Census Bureau estimates that 88,595 people lived in Henderson County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #683 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #46 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 82,151, the population has grown by 6,444 (+7.8%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 873.8 square miles of land, that is 101 people per square mile (39 per km²), placing Henderson County #982 nationally for density and #51 in Texas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Texas median is 22. Put another way, there are about 6.3 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 Henderson County

21 incorporated places lie at least partly in Henderson County. Together they are home to 41,479 people (46.8%); the other 47,116 (53.2%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Athens city, with 13,870 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Mabank town grew fastest since then (+50.7%).

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

Metropolitan area

Henderson County is a central county of the Athens, TX Micropolitan Statistical Area. Henderson County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the micro area has the same 873.8 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #234 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #51 by population. It belongs to the Dallas-Fort Worth, TX-OK Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

16 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Henderson County; 11 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

75124751437514775148751567516375751757527575675758757637577075778757827580375853

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 Henderson County

Henderson County shares a land border with 8 county equivalents. It has more land than 2 of them. The largest neighbor is Anderson County (1,062.6 mi²) and the smallest is Kaufman County (780.7 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Henderson County forms a block of 8,357.4 mi² of land, of which it holds 10.5%.

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

Henderson 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 299 areas the size of Henderson County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 29.6 miles (47.6 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 Henderson County?

Henderson County has more land than 2,292 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 Henderson County at #850 nationally by total area, 80 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 7.9%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 6.7 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 Henderson 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.