Harris County would be the 2nd smallest state after Rhode Island (Houston: neighborhoods, land)

[Zedd90]

If Harris county was a state, the area of Harris county alone is 1700 mi^2.

[Prickly Pear]

Maricopa County AZ is 9224 sq miles, bigger than the state of New Jersey (8723 sq miles)

And we aren’t the biggest county, I think we are 3rd or 4th behind San Bernardino (CA), Coconino (AZ) and Pima (AZ, tie?)

[scorpio516]

Houston CSA is only 500 square miles smaller than Massachusetts. Maine and Mass are the only New England states bigger than metro Houston. NJ and Delaware are smaller too. Delaware, RI, and CT combined are smaller than Houston CSA!

Also if you exclude NJ, Houston has more people than the states smaller than it (which makes perfect sense, cities are more dense than states, except NJ). Houston CSA is less dense than NJ, RI, MA, and CT states.

[atadytic19]

I think what the poster is saying is that most of the population is in Harris County. And most of Northwest Harris County is still empty.

Harris County has what, 4.4 million people in about 1200 square miles?

Just about any CSA is less dense than the states mentioned so in not sure what's so fascinating about Houston CSA is being mentioned here.

Connecticut is 3 times as large as Harris County but has 1000 less people.

Rhode Island is about 60% the size of Harris County but only has about 20% as many people.

Massachusetts has 5 times the land area of Harris County but less than twice the number of people.

New Hamshire and Vermont are 6 times the size of Harris County but neither even has a quarter of the population.

Harris County has almost as many people as Greater Boston in a lot less area.

It is about the same size as population as Detroit MSA in a lot smaller area.

Harris County has almost as many people as Phoenix MSA but that MSA covers 14,500 sq miles.
Maricopa County is the next biggest County after Harris in terms of population but is almost 10,000 sq miles. That is like what 7 times as large as Harris?

Houston doesn't have the dense walkable cores of Northeast cities but it certainly isn't the poster child for sprawl like many try to make it out to be.

[DRob4JC]

Originally Posted by Prickly Pear

Maricopa County AZ is 9224 sq miles, bigger than the state of New Jersey (8723 sq miles)

And we aren’t the biggest county, I think we are 3rd or 4th behind San Bernardino (CA), Coconino (AZ) and Pima (AZ, tie?)

You may be thinking largest cities - because Houston is right in the top 3 I think.

It's not even close to the top for counties... not even in Texas. From Wikipedia top 100 in land area...

1. San Bernardino County, CA - 20,052 sq mi
2 Coconino County, AZ - 18,617 sq mi
3 Nye County, NV - 18,146 sq mi
4 Elko County, NV - 17,179 sq mi
5 Mohave County, AZ - 13,311 sq mi
6 Apache County, AZ - 11,204 sq mi
7 Lincoln County, NV - 10,633 sq mi
8 Sweetwater County, WY - 10,425 sq mi
9 Inyo County, CA - 10,203 sq mi
10 Harney County, OR - 10,134 sq mi

39 Brewster County, TX - 6,192 sq mi

73 Pecos County, TX - 4,763 sq mi

80 Hudspeth County, TX - 4,571 sq mi

This isn't even including Alaska, which would blow away all of the continental 48.

1 Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area - 145,899 sq mi
2 North Slope Borough - 88,817 sq mi

[Dopo]

If Harris county was a state, it would be the 25th biggest state in the country by population.
And I’m sure that it would be higher than 25th by GDP.

But … there’s no money to build our highways

[atadytic19]

Originally Posted by Dopo

If Harris county was a state, it would be the 25th biggest state in the country by population.
And I’m sure that it would be higher than 25th by GDP.

But … there’s no money to build our highways

Harris County GDP is 359 Billion.
So it works be the 25th biggest state by population and 23rd by GDP.

In comparison, the next biggest County by population, Maricopa County, has a GDP of 271 Billion.

[Prickly Pear]

Originally Posted by atadytic19

I think what the poster is saying is that most of the population is in Harris County. And most of Northwest Harris County is still empty.

Harris County has what, 4.4 million people in about 1200 square miles?

Just about any CSA is less dense than the states mentioned so in not sure what's so fascinating about Houston CSA is being mentioned here.

Connecticut is 3 times as large as Harris County but has 1000 less people.

Rhode Island is about 60% the size of Harris County but only has about 20% as many people.

Massachusetts has 5 times the land area of Harris County but less than twice the number of people.

New Hamshire and Vermont are 6 times the size of Harris County but neither even has a quarter of the population.

Harris County has almost as many people as Greater Boston in a lot less area.

It is about the same size as population as Detroit MSA in a lot smaller area.

Harris County has almost as many people as Phoenix MSA but that MSA covers 14,500 sq miles.
Maricopa County is the next biggest County after Harris in terms of population but is almost 10,000 sq miles. That is like what 7 times as large as Harris?

Houston doesn't have the dense walkable cores of Northeast cities but it certainly isn't the poster child for sprawl like many try to make it out to be.

You extrapolated a lot more from the OP than I cared to deal with from their singular sentence. I thought we were talking solely about County sizes in relation to certain states.

Originally Posted by DRob4JC

You may be thinking largest cities - because Houston is right in the top 3 I think.

It's not even close to the top for counties... not even in Texas. From Wikipedia top 100 in land area...

1. San Bernardino County, CA - 20,052 sq mi
2 Coconino County, AZ - 18,617 sq mi
3 Nye County, NV - 18,146 sq mi
4 Elko County, NV - 17,179 sq mi
5 Mohave County, AZ - 13,311 sq mi
6 Apache County, AZ - 11,204 sq mi
7 Lincoln County, NV - 10,633 sq mi
8 Sweetwater County, WY - 10,425 sq mi
9 Inyo County, CA - 10,203 sq mi
10 Harney County, OR - 10,134 sq mi

39 Brewster County, TX - 6,192 sq mi

73 Pecos County, TX - 4,763 sq mi

80 Hudspeth County, TX - 4,571 sq mi

This isn't even including Alaska, which would blow away all of the continental 48.

1 Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area - 145,899 sq mi
2 North Slope Borough - 88,817 sq mi

This is how counties worked out West:

“Most of this is a bunch of unpopulated dirt.”

“Yes.”

“Ok so let’s attach it to the largest town with X population and call it a day.”

Phoenix proper is the 3rd largest city in land area (behind Anchorage and Jacksonville) and 5th largest city in population (1.5 mil). This has to do with Arizona’s rather extreme annexation policies, which severely limited cityhood for many neighborhoods that once had their own identity, and the City of Phoenix behaving like a virus and claiming everything to the horizon and beyond but I don’t have time to get into that here.

Maricopa County does not have the resources to meet the density of Harris County. The Phoenix MSA is about 1/2 Maricopa and maybe 1/4 of Pinal county as a rough estimate. However I believe a lot of the data just includes the counties as a whole, beneficial for eastern states with small counties, horrible to western states with big counties who again look like they have entire city areas larger than New Jersey when that’s false. Like atadytic said Phoenix MSA being 14k square miles again being almost double the size of New Jersey? Come on now

[Zedd90]

The stigma about Houston being a sprawling metro is a bit blown out proportion. No one ever talks about California, most of their major cities/counties aren't really that different from Texas.

[atadytic19]

Originally Posted by Prickly Pear

You extrapolated a lot more from the OP than I cared to deal with from their singular sentence. I thought we were talking solely about County sizes in relation to certain states.

My post was in response to the post right before it.
Specifically, it was in response to the CSA density comment. Not sure why it was brought up.