Palo Pinto County area

Population and density of Palo Pinto County

The Census Bureau estimates that 30,791 people lived in Palo Pinto County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,458 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #94 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 28,415, the population has grown by 2,376 (+8.4%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 952.5 square miles of land, that is 32 people per square mile (12 per km²), placing Palo Pinto County #1,937 nationally for density and #104 in Texas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Texas median is 22. Put another way, there are about 20 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 Palo Pinto County

5 incorporated places lie at least partly in Palo Pinto County. Together they are home to 17,878 people (58.1%); the other 12,913 (41.9%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Mineral Wells city, with 15,799 residents in the county (the city extends into 1 other county).

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

Metropolitan area

Palo Pinto County is a central county of the Mineral Wells, TX Micropolitan Statistical Area. Palo Pinto County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the micro area has the same 952.5 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #194 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #428 by population. It belongs to the Dallas-Fort Worth, TX-OK Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

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

760667606776429764497645076453764627646376472764757648476486

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 Palo Pinto County

Palo Pinto County shares a land border with 7 county equivalents. It has more land than 6 of them. The largest neighbor is Erath County (1,083.2 mi²) and the smallest is Hood County (420.7 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Palo Pinto County forms a block of 7,008.9 mi² of land, of which it holds 13.6%.

How big is Palo Pinto County compared with U.S. states?

Palo Pinto 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 274 areas the size of Palo Pinto County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 30.9 miles (49.7 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 Palo Pinto County?

Palo Pinto County has more land than 2,484 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 Palo Pinto County at #792 nationally by total area, 54 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 3.3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 2.2 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 Palo Pinto 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.