Hockley County area

Population and density of Hockley County

The Census Bureau estimates that 21,600 people lived in Hockley County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,798 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #114 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 21,523, the population has grown by 77 (+0.4%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 908.4 square miles of land, that is 24 people per square mile (9.2 per km²), placing Hockley County #2,178 nationally for density and #120 in Texas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Texas median is 22. Put another way, there are about 27 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 Hockley County

6 incorporated places lie at least partly in Hockley County. Together they are home to 15,900 people (73.6%); the other 5,700 (26.4%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Levelland city, with 12,513 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Sundown city grew fastest since then (+2.3%).

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

Metropolitan area

Hockley County is an outlying county of the Lubbock, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 6 county equivalents have 368,431 residents on 5,264.6 square miles of land; Hockley County accounts for 17.3% of the land and 5.9% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #47 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #155 by population. It belongs to the Lubbock-Plainview, TX Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

11 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Hockley County; 8 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

7931379336793397935379358793637936779372793807938279407

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 Hockley County

Hockley County shares a land border with 4 county equivalents. It has more land than 3 of them. The largest neighbor is Lamb County (1,016.2 mi²) and the smallest is Cochran County (775.1 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Hockley County forms a block of 4,484.2 mi² of land, of which it holds 20.3%.

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

Hockley County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.1 times as much. Texas’s county land could hold about 288 areas the size of Hockley County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 30.1 miles (48.5 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 Hockley County?

Hockley County has more land than 2,395 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 Hockley County at #935 nationally by total area, 108 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%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1.2 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 Hockley 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.