Wharton County area

Population and density of Wharton County

The Census Bureau estimates that 42,060 people lived in Wharton County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,170 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #80 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 41,589, the population has grown by 471 (+1.1%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 1,086.1 square miles of land, that is 39 people per square mile (15 per km²), placing Wharton County #1,779 nationally for density and #94 in Texas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Texas median is 22. Put another way, there are about 17 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 Wharton County

3 incorporated places lie at least partly in Wharton County. Together they are home to 23,174 people (55.1%); the other 18,886 (44.9%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is El Campo city, with 12,142 residents in the county. The county seat, Wharton city, has 8,776 residents. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, East Bernard city grew fastest since then (+1.5%).

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

Metropolitan area

Wharton County is a central county of the El Campo, TX Micropolitan Statistical Area. Wharton County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the micro area has the same 1,086.1 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #160 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #301 by population. It belongs to the Houston-Pasadena, TX Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

13 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Wharton County; 12 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

77420774327743477435774367743777443774487745377454774557746777488

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 Wharton County

Wharton County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. It has more land than 4 of them. The largest neighbor is Brazoria County (1,363.3 mi²) and the smallest is Austin County (646.5 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Wharton County forms a block of 6,841 mi² of land, of which it holds 15.9%.

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

Wharton County has more land than 1 of the 50 states. It is about 1.1 times the land area of Rhode Island (1,033.9 mi²), while Delaware, the next larger state, has 1.8 times as much land (1,948.6 mi²). Texas’s county land could hold about 241 areas the size of Wharton County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 33 miles (53 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 Wharton County?

Wharton County has more land than 2,635 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 Wharton County at #670 nationally by total area, 83 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 0.8%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.4 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 Wharton 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.