Texas is growing in population, and at a much higher rate than the U.S. as a whole. From 2019 to 2023, Texas’s population increased by 1.5 million, or 5.2%. For comparison, the population increase for the entire U.S. was 6.6 million, or 2.0%. Texas’s population increase was almost 23% of the population increase of the entire U.S. However, growth was not uniform across Texas. Just as the U.S. has faster and slower growing states, so too does Texas have faster and slower growing counties.
Here we present a picture of the dispersion of population growth in Texas. Our data covers 2019 – 2023; 2023 is our latest available data from the U.S. Census. This allows us to compare a pre-COVID year to the current year, thereby helping us avoid some of the changes that occurred during 2020 and subsequently.
We present two maps of Texas outlining its 254 counties and indicating the growth of population in the various counties.
Figure 1 is the growth rate of population in Texas counties, unadjusted for size of the population in a county. Counties with maroon are those that experienced negative population growth from 2019 to 2023. Perhaps surprisingly, they are the majority of Texas counties. Among 254 counties, 140 of them experienced population decline. They also are, typically but not always, counties with low populations located in the western half of the state.
Figure 1: Growth Rates of Counties Relative to State Average
Source: U.S. Census Bureau.
The tan counties are growing in population, but at rates less than the state average of 1.28% per year. There are 61 of these. Together with the counties with shrinking populations, a full 201 of the 254 Texas counties had population growth below the state average of 1.28%.
Finally, the teal-colored areas are counties that are growing in population faster than the state average. These counties are clustered near the major metro areas of Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, or San Antonio area. However, there are some fast-growing counties in other areas as well.
We also calculate the numerical increase in that county from 2019 to 2023 relative to the total numerical increase in Texas over that same period for each county. For instance, in Travis County, the population increased 61,394, while the population of Texas increased 1,516,507, which shows Travis County’s population increase was 4% of the total statewide population increase in Texas.
Figure 2 presents a map of Texas with counties shaded by how much their population increase was as a percent of the Texas population increase. All the negative growth counties in Figure 1 will show up here as having a negative share of the Texas population growth. They are again shown in maroon, and the pattern is identical to that shown in Figure 1.
Figure 2: County Share of Population Growth
Source: U.S. Census Bureau.
For the growing counties, the pattern is different, since Figure 2 divides the growing counties into those whose share of the Texas population growth, while positive, is less than 1%, shown in tan, and those with a share of the Texas population growth that is greater than 1%, shown in teal. There are 25 counties that had a share of Texas’s population growth that exceeded 1%. These counties are concentrated even more tightly in the major metro areas of Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and the San Antonio-Austin-Killeen corridor. The exceptions include El Paso County, located in the El Paso MSA, Hidalgo County, which is identical to the McAllen - Edinburg - Mission MSA, and, finally, Brazos County, located in the College Station - Bryan MSA. Together the increase in population in these 25 counties was 93.7% of the total population growth in all of Texas.
We can look at the major metropolitan areas directly. The Austin - Round Rock - San Marcos MSA has five counties, only four of which are in the teal-colored top 25. That entire MSA - all five counties – accounted for 16.2% of the Texas population growth. Its largest county by population, Travis, accounted for 4.05% of the total Texas population growth from 2019 to 2023. The county with the largest numerical increase in population was Williamson County, and that county’s population increase was 6.95% of the total Texas population growth over this period.
One county in the Killeen-Temple MSA experienced high growth, Bell County. Bell County is directly adjacent to the Austin-Round Rock MSA, and its growth accounted for 1.95% of the total population growth in Texas over this period.
The San Antonio-New Braunfels MSA has eight counties, only three of which are in the teal-colored top 25. This entire MSA accounted for 10.1% of the total Texas population growth over this period. The largest county by population, Bexar County, accounted for 5.62% of all Texas population growth over this period.
The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex has 11 counties, eight of which are in those teal-colored top 25 counties. The population increase in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex accounted for 34.7% of the entire state’s population increase. That said, the largest county in the metroplex, Dallas County, actually declined in population over this period. Its population decline was 1.9% of the total Texas statewide population increase, meaning that the other ten counties in the metroplex provided 36.6% of the Texas population increase, but Dallas county’s negative growth decreased that contribution rate. Meanwhile the second largest county in the metroplex, Tarrant County and home of Fort Worth, contributed 5.4% of the increase in Texas’s total population. The largest percentage contribution in the metroplex was from Collin County, which was responsible for 10.6% of the population growth in Texas over this period. Collin County alone contributed more to the population growth in Texas over this period than the entire San Antonio-New Braunfels MSA.
The Houston - Pasadena - The Woodlands MSA has 10 counties, of which six are among those teal-colored top 25 counties. This MSA accounted for 27.6% of the population growth in Texas. The largest county by population, Harris County, accounted for 8.3% of the population growth in Texas, which was the largest contribution of the counties in this MSA.
Hidalgo County, the only county in the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission MSA, contributed 2.1% of the population increase in Texas. El Paso County, one of two and by far the largest county in the El Paso MSA, also contributed 2.1% of the population increase in Texas. Finally, Brazos County, one of three counties in the College Station-Bryan MSA, contributed 1.0% of the population increase in Texas over this period.
Texas has experienced significant population growth from 2019 to 2023, with a four-year growth rate of 5.2%, far surpassing the national growth rate of 2.0%. However, this growth was unevenly distributed across the state, and concentrated in urban areas. Urban and suburban areas, particularly around major metro regions like Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Austin-San Antonio, and specific counties such as Travis and Collin, saw the largest increases. In contrast, many rural and western counties faced population declines. This disparity highlights concentration around economically vibrant areas. It also highlights the disparate economic development issues facing urban and rural areas of Texas.