Kenedy County area

Population and density of Kenedy County

The Census Bureau estimates that 319 people lived in Kenedy County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #3,219 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #252 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 350, the population has declined by 31 (−8.9%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 1,458.6 square miles of land, that is 0.22 people per square mile (0.084 per km²), placing Kenedy County #3,212 nationally for density and #252 in Texas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Texas median is 22. Put another way, there are about 2,926 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 Kenedy County

Kenedy County has no incorporated cities, towns or villages. All 319 of its residents live in unincorporated communities, which the Census Bureau describes as census-designated places rather than municipalities.

Metropolitan area

Kenedy County is not part of any metropolitan or micropolitan statistical area in the Office of Management and Budget’s July 2023 delineation; 1,306 other county equivalents are also outside one. These areas are built around an urban core of at least 10,000 people plus the counties tied to it by commuting, so counties outside them are generally rural.

ZIP codes

3 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Kenedy County; 2 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

783387838578580

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 Kenedy County

Kenedy County shares a land border with 4 county equivalents. It has more land than 3 of them. The largest neighbor is Hidalgo County (1,571.2 mi²) and the smallest is Willacy County (590.6 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Kenedy County forms a block of 5,445.1 mi² of land, of which it holds 26.8%.

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

Kenedy County has more land than 1 of the 50 states. It is about 1.4 times the land area of Rhode Island (1,033.9 mi²), while Delaware, the next larger state, has 1.3 times as much land (1,948.6 mi²). Texas’s county land could hold about 179 areas the size of Kenedy County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 38.2 miles (61.5 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 Kenedy County?

Kenedy County has more land than 2,812 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 Kenedy County at #325 nationally by total area, 85 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 25%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 23.9 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 Kenedy 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.