Waller County area

Population and density of Waller County

The Census Bureau estimates that 69,858 people lived in Waller County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #806 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #55 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 56,769, the population has grown by 13,089 (+23.1%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 513.4 square miles of land, that is 136 people per square mile (53 per km²), placing Waller County #822 nationally for density and #41 in Texas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Texas median is 22. Put another way, there are about 4.7 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 Waller County

8 incorporated places lie at least partly in Waller County. Together they are home to 34,461 people (49.3%); the other 35,397 (50.7%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Prairie View city, with 8,969 residents in the county. The county seat, Hempstead city, has 7,194 residents. By land, Houston city is the largest at 640.8 mi² across all its counties. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Waller city grew fastest since then (+108.8%).

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

Metropolitan area

Waller County is a central 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; Waller County accounts for 5.8% of the land and 0.9% 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

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

7735577363774237744577446774477746677484774937749477868

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 Waller County

Waller County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. Each of them has more land than Waller County. The largest neighbor is Harris County (1,707.3 mi²) and the smallest is Washington County (604.2 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Waller County forms a block of 6,163.2 mi² of land, of which it holds 8.3%.

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

Waller County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2 times as much. Texas’s county land could hold about 509 areas the size of Waller County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 22.7 miles (36.5 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 Waller County?

Waller County has more land than 1,192 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 Waller County at #2,110 nationally by total area, 80 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 0.9%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.3 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 Waller 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.