Hidalgo County area

Population and density of Hidalgo County

The Census Bureau estimates that 921,549 people lived in Hidalgo County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #64 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #9 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 870,788, the population has grown by 50,761 (+5.8%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 1,571.2 square miles of land, that is 587 people per square mile (226 per km²), placing Hidalgo County #300 nationally for density and #14 in Texas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Texas median is 22. Put another way, there are about 1.1 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 Hidalgo County

22 incorporated places lie at least partly in Hidalgo County. Together they are home to 659,508 people (71.6%); the other 262,041 (28.4%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is McAllen city, with 150,640 residents in the county. The county seat, Edinburg city, has 110,700 residents. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Alton city grew fastest since then (+32.5%).

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

Metropolitan area

Hidalgo County is a central county of the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area. Hidalgo County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the metro area has the same 1,571.2 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #213 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #65 by population. It belongs to the McAllen-Edinburg, TX Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

30 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Hidalgo County; 29 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

785017850378504785167853778538785397854078541785427854378549785577855878560785627856378565785697857078572785737857478576785777857978589785957859678599

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 Hidalgo County

Hidalgo County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. It has more land than every one of them. The largest neighbor is Kenedy County (1,458.6 mi²) and the smallest is Willacy County (590.6 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Hidalgo County forms a block of 6,678.6 mi² of land, of which it holds 23.5%.

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

Hidalgo County has more land than 1 of the 50 states. It is about 1.5 times the land area of Rhode Island (1,033.9 mi²), while Delaware, the next larger state, has 1.2 times as much land (1,948.6 mi²). Texas’s county land could hold about 166 areas the size of Hidalgo County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 39.6 miles (63.8 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 Hidalgo County?

Hidalgo County has more land than 2,836 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 Hidalgo County at #424 nationally by total area, 38 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 0.7%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.4 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 Hidalgo 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.