Rural Texas Facts Rural Texas covers approximately 80 percent of the state's total area. According to the 2006 Census estimates, 14 percent of the state's total population lives in rural Texas. The population of rural Texas is greater than the total population of 21 states and is larger than the combined populations of Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming and the District of Columbia. Texas has the largest rural population in the nation. (Between 2000 and 2007, the population of rural Texas grew 69 percent.) Texas has almost twice as many farms as any other state and more than double the amount of land acreage in farms. Millions of Texans choose to live in small towns. In 2000, more than 2 million Texans lived in rural and urban small towns in Texas. Forty-five percent of small-town residents live in small towns located in rural counties. Texas is a small-town state. Eighty-five percent of the state's incorporated cities have fewer than 10,000 residents. In 2007, rural Texans represented 13 percent of the Texas workforce. Visitors spent roughly $3.6 billion in rural and micropolitan Texas in 2006. SOURCES: The Status of Rural Texas 2006, Office of Rural Community Affairs; Economic Impact of Travel on Texas, Office of the Governor, Economic Development & Tourism.