List of counties in Texas

The U.S. state of Texas is divided into 254 counties, more than any other U.S. state.^[1] While only about 20% of Texas counties are generally located within the Houston—Dallas—San Antonio—Austin areas, they serve a majority of the state's population with approximately 22,000,000 inhabitants.

Counties of Texas
EP HZ CU RV JD PS BS PC TE CX VV SU ED KY UV ZV MV DM WB DV JH ZP SR HG QM WY KN BK JW KL NU SP LK MC LS FR ME BX AT WN KA BE GD RF AS CL VT JK LC DW GZ GU CM KE BN RE KR GL KM MN SL IR RG UT CR WR LV WK EC MD GC ST TG CK RN CC CN MK MS SS LL BT BC HY TV CW BP FY CD WH MG BO FB AU WT LE BU BZ RT MM WM BL FA LT ML CV LM MI BR QC HM BQ ER SV HD JN HI EL NV FT LN MA GM WL HR GV CH LB MQ WA HO TN SJ PK HN JF OR NW JP TL AG SA SB SY NA CE AN HE KF VN RA WD UR SM GG RK PN HS MR CS BW ←MX RR TT CP FK↱ HP DT→ LR FN HU RW→ DL QL GS CO DN TR PR WS MU CY JC PP EA SE YN AR WC WG BY TH SF CA TA JS HK KX FD HX CI CT KG SN FS NL MH SC KT DK MY HL BI FL CB GR BD HW MT AD GA DS LY LU HA SW QS LA HQ TY YK CQ BA PM DF RD AM DY CG WE GY CZ PT OL HT MO HC RB HH LP OC HF SH DA
Location	State of Texas
Number	254
Populations	43 (Loving) – 4,835,125 (Harris)
Areas	149 square miles (390 km2) (Rockwall) – 6,192 square miles (16,040 km2) (Brewster)
Government	County government
Subdivisions	Precinct

Texas was originally divided into municipalities (municipios in Spanish), a unit of local government under Spanish and Mexican rule. When the Republic of Texas gained its independence in 1836, the 23 municipalities became the original Texas counties. Many of these were later divided into new counties. The last county to be initially created was Kenedy County in 1921, but Loving County is the newest organized county; it was first organized in 1893 in an apparent scheme to defraud, abolished in 1897, then reorganized in 1931. Most of these recent counties, especially near the northwest, were created from Bexar County during the 1870s.^[2][3][4]

Each county is run by a commissioners' court, consisting of four elected commissioners (one from each of four precincts drawn based on population) and a county judge elected from all the voters of the county. In smaller counties, the county judge actually does perform judicial duties, but in larger counties, the county judge functions as the county's chief executive officer. Certain officials, such as the sheriff and tax collector, are elected separately by the voters, but the commissioners' court determines their office budgets, and sets overall county policy. All county elections are partisan; the one exception is the board of trustees of the Dallas County department of education (the Harris County trustees were elected on a nonpartisan basis until 1984).^[5]

While the counties have eminent domain power and control all unincorporated land within their boundaries, they have neither home-rule authority nor zoning power. The county is responsible for providing essential services (except for fire and ambulance, which are often supplied by volunteer fire departments). Unlike other US states, Texas does not allow for consolidated city-county governments. Cities and counties (as well as other political entities) are permitted to enter "interlocal agreements" to share services (as an example, a city and a school district may enter into agreements with the county whereby the county bills for and collects property taxes for the city and school district; thus, only one tax bill is sent instead of three).^[6] School districts are independent of county and city government (with the exception of the Stafford Municipal School District, which is city controlled).

The Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) code, which is used by the United States government to uniquely identify states and counties, is provided with each entry.^[7] Texas' code is 48, which when combined with any county code would be written in the form of 48XXX. The FIPS code for each county in the table links to census data for that county.