Tarrant County area

Population and density of Tarrant County

The Census Bureau estimates that 2,248,466 people lived in Tarrant County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #14 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #3 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 2,110,969, the population has grown by 137,497 (+6.5%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 865.4 square miles of land, that is 2,598 people per square mile (1,003 per km²), placing Tarrant County #56 nationally for density and #3 in Texas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Texas median is 22. Put another way, there are about 0.246 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 Tarrant County

42 incorporated places lie at least partly in Tarrant County. Together they are home to 2,199,126 people (97.8%); the other 49,340 (2.2%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Fort Worth city, with 1,006,863 residents in the county (the city extends into 4 other counties). Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Haslet city grew fastest since then (+166.7%).

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

Metropolitan area

Tarrant County is a central county of the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area, in the Fort Worth-Arlington-Grapevine, TX metropolitan division. Its 11 county equivalents have 8,477,157 residents on 8,675.6 square miles of land; Tarrant County accounts for 10% of the land and 26.5% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #11 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #4 by population. It belongs to the Dallas-Fort Worth, TX-OK Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

76 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Tarrant County; 66 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

75022750287505075051750527505475261760017600276005760067600876010760117601276013760147601576016760177601876020760217602276028760347603676039760407605176052760537605476060760637607176092761027610376104761057610676107761087610976110761117611276114761157611676117761187611976120761237612676127761297613176132761337613476135761377614076148761557616476177761797618076182762447624876262

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 Tarrant County

Tarrant County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Ellis County (935.8 mi²) and the smallest is Johnson County (725.1 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Tarrant County forms a block of 6,085.7 mi² of land, of which it holds 14.2%.

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

Tarrant 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 302 areas the size of Tarrant County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 29.4 miles (47.3 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 Tarrant County?

Tarrant County has more land than 2,269 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 Tarrant County at #957 nationally by total area, 4 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 4.2%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 3.1 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 Tarrant 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.