Nueces County area

Population and density of Nueces County

The Census Bureau estimates that 352,992 people lived in Nueces County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #215 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #17 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 353,346, the population has declined by 354 (−0.1%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 839.4 square miles of land, that is 421 people per square mile (162 per km²), placing Nueces County #398 nationally for density and #19 in Texas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Texas median is 22. Put another way, there are about 1.5 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 Nueces County

10 incorporated places lie at least partly in Nueces County. Together they are home to 335,787 people (95.1%); the other 17,205 (4.9%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Corpus Christi city, with 317,241 residents in the county (the city extends into 3 other counties). Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Port Aransas city grew fastest since then (+30.1%).

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

Metropolitan area

Nueces County is a central county of the Corpus Christi, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 3 county equivalents have 451,191 residents on 1,785 square miles of land; Nueces County accounts for 47% of the land and 78.2% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #177 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #122 by population. It belongs to the Corpus Christi-Kingsville-Alice, TX Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

27 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Nueces County; 24 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

783307833678339783437834778351783737838078383784017840278404784057840678407784087840978410784117841278413784147841578416784177841878419

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 Nueces County

Nueces County shares a land border with 4 county equivalents. It has more land than 2 of them. The largest neighbor is Kleberg County (881.3 mi²) and the smallest is Aransas County (252.3 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Nueces County forms a block of 3,531.5 mi² of land, of which it holds 23.8%.

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

Nueces 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 311 areas the size of Nueces County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 29 miles (46.6 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 Nueces County?

Nueces County has more land than 2,226 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 Nueces County at #611 nationally by total area, 385 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 28%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 26.8 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 Nueces 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.