El Paso County, Texas

El Paso County is a county in Texas, United States, anchoring the state’s far western tip about 45 miles southeast of Las Cruces, New Mexico. It had a population of 865,657 at the 2020 census, an estimated 870,779 by 2024, and covers 1,013 square miles (2,620 km2) of land centred near 31°46′N 106°14′W.

El Paso is the county seat and by far its largest city; its postal code is 79901. The county holds 4 incorporated cities, 2 towns and 1 village, plus scores of unincorporated communities and colonias, and it runs on Mountain Time — the only major Texas county not on Central Time. Its FIPS code is 48141.

Towns & Villages in El Paso County

El Paso County has only 7 incorporated municipalities, but well over 200 named unincorporated places — CDPs and colonias platted mostly in the 1960s–1980s along the county’s eastern and western fringes. The table below lists every incorporated city, town and village first, then the largest unincorporated communities with a verified 2020 census count. Type legend: City · seat = county seat, City, Town, Village = incorporated municipalities; CDP = census-designated place with no municipal government.

Largest unincorporated communities (census-designated places), by 2020 population:

Beyond these, county and Census records name roughly 200 smaller colonias — informal subdivisions such as the Hueco Mountain Estates and Homestead Meadows numbered tracts, most without their own ZIP code, municipal water system or place-level population count. El Paso County has more of these than any other Texas county. Two confusable pairs are worth flagging: this is Texas’s El Paso County — Colorado has a separate, larger El Paso County built around Colorado Springs, roughly 550 miles northeast. And the town of Anthony sits directly on the state line: Anthony, Texas and Anthony, New Mexico (Doña Ana County) share one street grid and a single ZIP code, 79821, but are two different municipalities in two different states.

ZIP Codes

• 79901–79938, plus the 79940s and 79960s PO Box ranges — El Paso proper, which alone carries more than 40 ZIP codes covering its Downtown, Eastside, Westside and Lower Valley districts
• 79906–79908 — Fort Bliss
• 79927–79929 — Socorro (also serves the western edge of Horizon City)
• 79928 — Horizon City and Sparks
• 79849 — San Elizario
• 79821 — Anthony and Vinton
• 79836 — Clint (also serves western Fabens)
• 79838 — Fabens
• 79835 and 79932 — Canutillo
• 79938 — Homestead Meadows North, Homestead Meadows South and Agua Dulce
• 79853 — Tornillo

Most of the county’s smaller colonias have no ZIP of their own and are served by rural-route delivery out of the nearest town’s post office; the U.S. Postal Service does not assign a distinct code to a settlement without its own delivery point.

Geography

The Franklin Mountains split El Paso itself in two, rising to 7,192 feet at North Franklin Peak and visible from 60 miles away; the range is protected as a large state park covering the mountains, one of the largest urban parks in the country. East of the city, the low Hueco Mountains hold the rock-art site Hueco Tanks. The Rio Grande runs along the county’s southern and western edge, forming the international border with Chihuahua, Mexico, and feeding the restored Rio Bosque Wetlands Park near the river’s Lower Valley bend. Of the county’s 1,015 square miles, 1,013 square miles (2,620 km2) are land and 2.3 square miles (6.0 km2), about 0.2%, are water — almost entirely the river channel and its irrigation-district canals, since the surrounding Chihuahuan Desert has no natural lakes.

El Paso County borders only one other Texas county: Hudspeth County to the east and southeast, a vast, sparsely populated county along the same I-10 corridor. To the north and northwest it borders Doña Ana County, New Mexico, and to the northeast, Otero County, New Mexico. Its entire southern edge is an international border, facing Chihuahua, Mexico, and the city of Ciudad Juárez across the Rio Grande — together the two cities form one of the largest binational metropolitan areas on any border in the world.

Demographics

El Paso County had a population of 865,657 at the 2020 census, estimated at 870,779 by 2024, making it the third most populous county in Texas after Harris and Bexar. El Paso city (678,815) and Socorro (34,306) are its two largest communities by far; no other place in the county passes 25,000 residents. Median household income was $59,806 in 2024, well below the Texas figure of $78,476. Population density works out to roughly 855 people per square mile of land, concentrated almost entirely in the city and its Lower Valley and eastside suburbs; the county’s rural east, toward Hudspeth County, is nearly empty desert.

Economy & Local Life

Health care and social assistance is the county’s largest employment sector at roughly 52,500 workers, followed by educational services (about 43,600) and retail trade (about 41,500). Fort Bliss, the U.S. Army’s second-largest installation and home to the 1st Armored Division, employed about 127,000 people directly and through contractors in 2023 and is estimated to add nearly $28 billion a year to the Texas economy — the single biggest driver of the county’s economy. William Beaumont Army Medical Center and the University of Texas at El Paso, the region’s largest degree-granting institution, are the other major anchor employers in El Paso proper. Along the border, cross-trade with Ciudad Juárez’s maquiladora manufacturing sector supports large warehousing and logistics operations near the ports of entry at Santa Teresa, the Bridge of the Americas and the Ysleta–Zaragoza crossing. The Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, home to the Tigua people, operates Speaking Rock Entertainment Center in the Lower Valley. The county’s biggest annual event is the Sun Bowl, a college football game and parade held every December in El Paso and one of the oldest bowl games in the country.

History

Spanish colonization reached the area in 1598, when explorer Juan de Oñate held the ceremony of La Toma near present-day San Elizario, claiming the territory for Spain in what is often called the founding moment of the American Southwest. Manso and Piro refugees fleeing the 1680 Pueblo Revolt in New Mexico settled the missions that became Ysleta and Socorro, giving the Lower Valley some of the oldest continuously farmed land in Texas. Texas created El Paso County in 1850, shortly after statehood, and formally organized its government in 1871; the name comes from El Paso del Norte, Spanish for “the pass of the north,” describing the natural gap the Rio Grande cuts between the Franklin and Juárez mountains. In 1877, a dispute over access to nearby salt flats erupted into the San Elizario Salt War, a several-day armed standoff between local Mexican-American residents and Texas Rangers that ended with the Rangers surrendering and two men killed. On August 3, 2019, a gunman opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso, killing 23 people and injuring 22 others in an attack federal prosecutors classified as a hate crime targeting the region’s Hispanic and Latino community; the perpetrator pleaded guilty in 2023 to 90 federal charges and received 90 consecutive life sentences.

Getting There

Interstate 10 is the county’s main highway, running the length of El Paso before continuing east across Hudspeth County and west into New Mexico; the short Interstate 110 spur connects Downtown El Paso directly to the Bridge of the Americas border crossing. US routes 54, 62, 85 and 180 fan out from the city toward the Guadalupe Mountains, the New Mexico state line and the Lower Valley border towns.

• Las Cruces, New Mexico — 45 miles northwest
• Ciudad Juárez, Mexico — adjacent, across the Rio Grande from Downtown El Paso
• Alamogordo, New Mexico — 90 miles northeast
• Van Horn, Texas — 120 miles southeast, the nearest sizeable Texas town along I-10

El Paso International Airport (ELP), in the city’s northeast, is the county’s only commercial airport and one of the busiest in the Southwest. El Paso Union Depot downtown is served by Amtrak’s Texas Eagle and Sunset Limited routes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is El Paso County, Texas?
It sits at the far western tip of Texas, on the Rio Grande across from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and bordering New Mexico’s Doña Ana and Otero counties.

What is El Paso County’s population?
865,657 at the 2020 census, estimated at 870,779 by 2024, making it Texas’s third most populous county.

How big is El Paso County?
1,013 square miles (2,620 km2) of land, plus 2.3 square miles of water — almost all of it the Rio Grande.

What is the county seat of El Paso County?
El Paso, which is also the county’s only large city and the sixth-most populous city in Texas.

How many towns and cities are in El Paso County?
Seven incorporated municipalities — four cities (El Paso, Socorro, Horizon City, San Elizario), two towns (Anthony, Clint) and one village (Vinton) — plus dozens of unincorporated communities and roughly 200 smaller colonias.

What ZIP codes cover El Paso County?
El Paso itself uses more than 40 ZIP codes in the 79901–79938 range; the rest of the county’s municipalities and CDPs use codes between 79821 and 79938, listed in full above.

Is this the same El Paso County as the one in Colorado?
No. Texas’s El Paso County is on the Mexican border and contains the city of El Paso; Colorado’s El Paso County, roughly 550 miles northeast, is built around Colorado Springs and is not related.

More counties in this state: Towns and villages in Texas.