Howard County area

Population and density of Howard County

The Census Bureau estimates that 30,504 people lived in Howard County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,470 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #95 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 34,860, the population has declined by 4,356 (−12.5%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 900.8 square miles of land, that is 34 people per square mile (13 per km²), placing Howard County #1,898 nationally for density and #100 in Texas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Texas median is 22. Put another way, there are about 19 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 Howard County

3 incorporated places lie at least partly in Howard County. Together they are home to 23,435 people (76.8%); the other 7,069 (23.2%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Big Spring city, with 22,290 residents in the county.

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

Metropolitan area

Howard County is a central county of the Big Spring, TX Micropolitan Statistical Area. Howard County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the micro area has the same 900.8 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #215 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #431 by population.

ZIP codes

6 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Howard County; 5 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

795117971379720797217973379748

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 Howard County

Howard County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. It has more land than 2 of them. The largest neighbor is Sterling County (923.4 mi²) and the smallest is Borden County (897.4 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Howard County forms a block of 5,447.9 mi² of land, of which it holds 16.5%.

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

Howard 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 290 areas the size of Howard County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 30 miles (48.3 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 Howard County?

Howard County has more land than 2,374 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 Howard County at #954 nationally by total area, 106 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 0.4%, 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 Howard 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.