Nolan County area

Population and density of Nolan County

The Census Bureau estimates that 14,117 people lived in Nolan County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,224 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #145 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 14,737, the population has declined by 620 (−4.2%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 912 square miles of land, that is 15 people per square mile (6 per km²), placing Nolan County #2,461 nationally for density and #149 in Texas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Texas median is 22. Put another way, there are about 41 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 Nolan County

3 incorporated places lie at least partly in Nolan County. Together they are home to 11,595 people (82.1%); the other 2,522 (17.9%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Sweetwater city, with 10,141 residents in the county.

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

Metropolitan area

Nolan County is a central county of the Sweetwater, TX Micropolitan Statistical Area. Nolan County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the micro area has the same 912 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #207 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #538 by population. It belongs to the Abilene-Sweetwater, TX Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

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

795067953279535795367953779545795567956179566

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 Nolan County

Nolan County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. It has more land than 3 of them. The largest neighbor is Runnels County (1,051.1 mi²) and the smallest is Fisher County (899 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Nolan County forms a block of 5,600.3 mi² of land, of which it holds 16.3%.

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

Nolan 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 286 areas the size of Nolan County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 30.2 miles (48.6 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 Nolan County?

Nolan County has more land than 2,406 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 Nolan County at #919 nationally by total area, 103 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 0.2%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1 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 Nolan 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.