Jim Wells County area

Population and density of Jim Wells County

The Census Bureau estimates that 38,804 people lived in Jim Wells County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,237 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #84 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 38,902, the population has declined by 98 (−0.3%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 865.2 square miles of land, that is 45 people per square mile (17 per km²), placing Jim Wells County #1,652 nationally for density and #86 in Texas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Texas median is 22. Put another way, there are about 14 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 Jim Wells County

4 incorporated places lie at least partly in Jim Wells County. Together they are home to 21,872 people (56.4%); the other 16,932 (43.6%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Alice city, with 17,550 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Orange Grove city grew fastest since then (+1%).

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

Metropolitan area

Jim Wells County is a central county of the Alice, TX Micropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 45,383 residents on 1,808.5 square miles of land; Jim Wells County accounts for 47.8% of the land and 85.5% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #89 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #270 by population. It belongs to the Corpus Christi-Kingsville-Alice, TX Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

8 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Jim Wells County; 4 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

7833278342783557837278375783807838378384

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 Jim Wells County

Jim Wells County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. It has more land than 2 of them. The largest neighbor is Duval County (1,793.5 mi²) and the smallest is San Patricio County (693.3 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Jim Wells County forms a block of 7,055.7 mi² of land, of which it holds 12.3%.

How big is Jim Wells County compared with U.S. states?

Jim Wells 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 302 areas the size of Jim Wells County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 29.4 miles (47.3 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 Jim Wells County?

Jim Wells County has more land than 2,268 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 Jim Wells County at #1,046 nationally by total area, 92 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 Jim Wells 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.