These four Texas counties are among the fastest growing in the country

By Joshua Fechter, The Texas Tribune; Graphics by Chris Essig, The Texas Tribune

DALLAS — Texas is adding residents at a slower clip than in previous years, but many parts of the state are still booming.

Kaufman County, just east of Dallas, was the fastest-growing county in the state and second-fastest growing county in the country between July 1, 2023, and July 1, 2024, figures released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau show. The county’s population grew by 6% — behind Dawson County in Georgia. The number of people living in Kaufman County has grown by more than 50,000 residents between 2020 and 2024 — an increase of more than a third, the fastest of any Texas county in that period.

Proximity to major job centers elsewhere in the Dallas-Fort Worth region has played a key role in the county’s growth, Kaufman Mayor Jeff Jordan said. A good chunk of the county’s residents are commuters, Census data show — with more than half of Kaufman County’s residents working outside of the county, compared with about 27% of Dallas-Fort Worth residents who work outside of the county where they live.

“I do think a lot of people are attracted to that small town vibe,” Jordan said. “You're getting people that appreciate that and want to be a part of it.”

Kaufman County’s comparatively lower home prices have also attracted residents there, said Anne Glasscock, Kaufman Chamber of Commerce CEO. The fetching price of a home is generally lower in Kaufman County than it is elsewhere in North Texas, figures from Zillow and Texas A&M University show.

“It's really the next frontier,” Glasscock said.

Of the 10 counties that grew the fastest between 2023 and 2024, four were in Texas: Kaufman, Liberty, Montgomery and Caldwell counties. Georgia and Florida each had two counties among the 10 fastest growing counties — while South Carolina and Florida had one each.

Harris County, the state’s most populous urban county, added more residents than any other county in the country, growing by 105,852 residents from July 1, 2023, to July 1, 2024. Collin County grew by nearly 47,000 people in that same time frame, seeing the fourth-largest amount of new residents among U.S. counties. Montgomery and Tarrant counties rounded out the top 10.

Among the state’s major metropolitan areas, the Midland and Odessa regions led for population growth from 2023 to 2024 at 2.8% — the only Texas regions to crack the country’s 10 fastest growing metro areas.

The state’s major urban areas are still adding hundreds of thousands of residents. The Houston metropolitan region’s population grew by 198,171 people in that period, the second-largest numerical increase among U.S. metro areas. The Dallas-Fort Worth region came in just behind Houston with 177,922 new residents.

Texas’ population growth has slowed, but it still surpassed 31 million last year. Fewer residents are moving to Texas from other states than during the COVID-19 pandemic, but still leads the country in domestic migration. That slowdown was evident in population figures at the county and metro area level.

International migration was the primary driver of population growth in the state’s urban areas. The state’s metro regions added some 309,506 residents from abroad from 2023 to 2024, accounting for more than half of all population growth in those regions.