Willacy County area

Population and density of Willacy County

The Census Bureau estimates that 19,971 people lived in Willacy County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,885 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #124 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 20,161, the population has declined by 190 (−0.9%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 590.6 square miles of land, that is 34 people per square mile (13 per km²), placing Willacy County #1,900 nationally for density and #101 in Texas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Texas median is 22. Put another way, there are about 19 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 Willacy County

3 incorporated places lie at least partly in Willacy County. Together they are home to 12,837 people (64.3%); the other 7,134 (35.7%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Raymondville city, with 10,082 residents in the county.

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

Metropolitan area

Willacy County is a central county of the Raymondville, TX Micropolitan Statistical Area. Willacy County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the micro area has the same 590.6 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #359 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #516 by population. It belongs to the Brownsville-Harlingen-Raymondville, TX Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

6 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Willacy County, and each lies mostly inside the county.

785617856978580785907859478598

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are the Census Bureau’s approximations of USPS ZIP Code service areas, from the 2020 Census relationship files. Post-office-box and single-address ZIP Codes have no tabulation area.

Counties bordering Willacy County

Willacy County shares a land border with 3 county equivalents. Each of them has more land than Willacy County. The largest neighbor is Hidalgo County (1,571.2 mi²) and the smallest is Cameron County (891.7 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Willacy County forms a block of 4,512.1 mi² of land, of which it holds 13.1%.

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

Willacy 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 442 areas the size of Willacy County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 24.3 miles (39.1 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 Willacy County?

Willacy County has more land than 1,564 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 Willacy County at #1,210 nationally by total area, 448 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 24.7%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 23.6 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 Willacy 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.