Rusk County area

Population and density of Rusk County

The Census Bureau estimates that 54,854 people lived in Rusk County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #961 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #68 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 52,222, the population has grown by 2,632 (+5%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 924.2 square miles of land, that is 59 people per square mile (23 per km²), placing Rusk County #1,394 nationally for density and #69 in Texas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Texas median is 22. Put another way, there are about 11 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 Rusk County

8 incorporated places lie at least partly in Rusk County. Together they are home to 21,942 people (40%); the other 32,912 (60%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Henderson city, with 13,496 residents in the county. By land, Kilgore city is the largest at 18.9 mi² across all its counties. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Tatum city grew fastest since then (+4.5%).

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

Metropolitan area

Rusk County is an outlying county of the Longview, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 4 county equivalents have 297,315 residents on 2,680.6 square miles of land; Rusk County accounts for 34.5% of the land and 18.4% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #119 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #174 by population.

ZIP codes

20 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Rusk County; 13 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

7560375641756527565475658756627566775669756807568175682756847568775689756917576075784757897594675975

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 Rusk County

Rusk County shares a land border with 7 county equivalents. It has more land than 5 of them. The largest neighbor is Cherokee County (1,053 mi²) and the smallest is Gregg County (273.4 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Rusk County forms a block of 6,625.4 mi² of land, of which it holds 13.9%.

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

Rusk 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 283 areas the size of Rusk County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 30.4 miles (48.9 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 Rusk County?

Rusk County has more land than 2,435 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 Rusk County at #865 nationally by total area, 78 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 1.5%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.4 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 Rusk 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.