Starr County area

Population and density of Starr County

The Census Bureau estimates that 66,319 people lived in Starr County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #839 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #56 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 65,916, the population has grown by 403 (+0.6%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 1,223.2 square miles of land, that is 54 people per square mile (21 per km²), placing Starr County #1,473 nationally for density and #76 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 Starr County

4 incorporated places lie at least partly in Starr County. Together they are home to 30,813 people (46.5%); the other 35,506 (53.5%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Rio Grande City city, with 15,451 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Rio Grande City city grew fastest since then (+1%).

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

Metropolitan area

Starr County is a central county of the Rio Grande City-Roma, TX Micropolitan Statistical Area. Starr County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the micro area has the same 1,223.2 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #142 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #130 by population. It belongs to the McAllen-Edinburg, TX Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

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

7853678545785477854878563785827858478585785887859178595

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 Starr County

Starr County shares a land border with 4 county equivalents. It has more land than 3 of them. The largest neighbor is Hidalgo County (1,571.2 mi²) and the smallest is Brooks County (943.4 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Starr County forms a block of 5,872.3 mi² of land, of which it holds 20.8%.

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

Starr County has more land than 1 of the 50 states. It is about 1.2 times the land area of Rhode Island (1,033.9 mi²), while Delaware, the next larger state, has 1.6 times as much land (1,948.6 mi²). Texas’s county land could hold about 214 areas the size of Starr County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 35 miles (56.3 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 Starr County?

Starr County has more land than 2,721 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 Starr County at #576 nationally by total area, 75 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 0.5%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.7 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 Starr 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.