San Jacinto County area

Population and density of San Jacinto County

The Census Bureau estimates that 29,488 people lived in San Jacinto County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,502 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #97 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 27,406, the population has grown by 2,082 (+7.6%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 569.2 square miles of land, that is 52 people per square mile (20 per km²), placing San Jacinto County #1,514 nationally for density and #78 in Texas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Texas median is 22. Put another way, there are about 12 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 San Jacinto County

4 incorporated places lie at least partly in San Jacinto County. Together they are home to 3,562 people (12.1%); the other 25,926 (87.9%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Shepherd city, with 1,942 residents in the county. The county seat, Coldspring city, has 886 residents. By land, Cleveland city is the largest at 18.8 mi² across all its counties.

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

Metropolitan area

San Jacinto County is an outlying county of the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 10 county equivalents have 7,904,627 residents on 8,839.2 square miles of land; San Jacinto County accounts for 6.4% of the land and 0.4% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #9 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #5 by population. It belongs to the Houston-Pasadena, TX Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

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

7732077328773317735877359773647737177378

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 San Jacinto County

San Jacinto County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. Each of them has more land than San Jacinto County. The largest neighbor is Liberty County (1,158.5 mi²) and the smallest is Trinity County (693.9 mi²). Together with its neighbors, San Jacinto County forms a block of 5,305 mi² of land, of which it holds 10.7%.

How big is San Jacinto County compared with U.S. states?

San Jacinto County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.8 times as much. Texas’s county land could hold about 459 areas the size of San Jacinto County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 23.9 miles (38.4 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 San Jacinto County?

San Jacinto County has more land than 1,433 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 San Jacinto County at #1,646 nationally by total area, 143 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 9.3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 8.2 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 San Jacinto 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.