Counties of New Mexico | |
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Location | State of New Mexico |
Number | 33 |
Populations | 624 (Harding) – 671,586 (Bernalillo) |
Areas | 109 square miles (280 km2) (Los Alamos) – 6,928 square miles (17,940 km2) (Catron) |
Government | |
Subdivisions |
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There are 33 counties in the U.S. state of New Mexico.
The New Mexico Territory was organized in September 1850. The first nine counties in the territory to be created, in 1852, were Bernalillo, Doña Ana, Rio Arriba, San Miguel, Santa Ana, Santa Fe, Socorro, Taos, and Valencia Counties. Mora County was created in 1860. Following the Gadsden Purchase of 1853–1854, the northeasternmost part of the New Mexico Territory was ceded to the new Colorado Territory in February 1861, before the western half was reorganized as the Arizona Territory in February 1863, establishing New Mexico's present-day boundaries.
Grant County was created in 1868, followed by Colfax and Lincoln Counties in 1869. In 1876, Santa Ana County was absorbed by Bernalillo County. A further 14 counties were then created between 1884 and 1909, bringing the total number to 26.
New Mexico was admitted to the Union as the 47th state on January 6, 1912. De Baca and Lea Counties were created in 1917, followed by Hidalgo County in 1920 and Catron and Harding Counties in 1921. Los Alamos County was created in 1949 and finally Cibola County in 1981, bringing the total number of counties to 33.
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. [1] New Mexico's code is 35, which when combined with any county code would be written as 35XXX. The FIPS code for each county links to census data for that county.
For comparison, the population estimate for the state of New Mexico as of July 2011 was 2,082,224, and the area was 121,589 mi2 (315,194 km2).
County | FIPS code [2] | County seat [3] | Est. [3] | Formed from [4] | Etymology [5] | Pop. [6] | Area [3] [7] | Map |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
BernalilloCounty | 001 | Albuquerque | 1852 | One of the nine original counties. | The Gonzales-Bernal family, Spanish nobles who settled the territory in the seventeenth century | 671,586 | 1,166 sq mi (3,020 km2) | |
CatronCounty | 003 | Reserve | 1921 | Part of Socorro County. | Thomas Benton Catron (1840–1921), a Santa Fe attorney and New Mexico's first U.S. Senator | 3,825 | 6,928 sq mi (17,943 km2) | |
ChavesCounty | 005 | Roswell | 1889 | Part of Lincoln County. | Jose Francisco Chaves (1833–1904), a U.S. Army colonel in New Mexico during and after the Civil War | 63,561 | 6,071 sq mi (15,724 km2) | |
CibolaCounty | 006 | Grants | 1981 | Parts of Valencia County, Socorro County, McKinley County, and Catron County. | The mythical Seven Cities of Cibola | 26,780 | 4,540 sq mi (11,759 km2) | |
ColfaxCounty | 007 | Raton | 1869 | Part of Mora County. | Schuyler Colfax (1823–1885), the seventeenth vice president of the United States | 12,255 | 3,757 sq mi (9,731 km2) | |
CurryCounty | 009 | Clovis | 1909 | Parts of Quay County and Roosevelt County. | George Curry (1861–1947), a governor of New Mexico Territory from 1907 to 1910 | 47,222 | 1,406 sq mi (3,642 km2) | |
De BacaCounty | 011 | Fort Sumner | 1917 | Parts of Chaves County and Guadalupe County. | Ezequiel Cabeza de Baca (1864–1917), the second state governor of New Mexico | 1,657 | 2,325 sq mi (6,022 km2) | |
Doña AnaCounty | 013 | Las Cruces | 1852 | One of the nine original counties. | Doña Ana Robledo, a seventeenth-century Spanish woman known for her charitable giving to the native population | 225,210 | 3,807 sq mi (9,860 km2) | |
EddyCounty | 015 | Carlsbad | 1887 | Part of Lincoln County. | Charles Eddy (1857–1931), a rancher and developer of the area | 60,275 | 4,182 sq mi (10,831 km2) | |
GrantCounty | 017 | Silver City | 1868 | Part of Doña Ana County. | Ulysses Simpson Grant (1822–1885), the Civil War general and eighteenth president of the United States | 27,472 | 3,966 sq mi (10,272 km2) | |
GuadalupeCounty | 019 | Santa Rosa | 1891 | Part of San Miguel County. | Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patron saint of the Americas | 4,292 | 3,031 sq mi (7,850 km2) | |
HardingCounty | 021 | Mosquero | 1921 | Parts of Mora County and Union County. | Warren Gamaliel Harding (1865–1923), the twenty-ninth president of the United States | 624 | 2,126 sq mi (5,506 km2) | |
HidalgoCounty | 023 | Lordsburg | 1920 | Part of Grant County. | The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, named after a Mexican town in turn named for Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (1753 - 1811), the priest who is known as the Father of Mexican Independence | 3,965 | 3,446 sq mi (8,925 km2) | |
LeaCounty | 025 | Lovington | 1917 | Parts of Chaves County and Eddy County. | Joseph Calloway Lea (1841–1904), a captain in the U.S. Army and the founder of the New Mexico Military Academy | 72,101 | 4,393 sq mi (11,378 km2) | |
LincolnCounty | 027 | Carrizozo | 1869 | Part of Socorro County. | Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States | 20,029 | 4,831 sq mi (12,512 km2) | |
Los AlamosCounty | 028 | Los Alamos | 1949 | Parts of Sandoval County and Santa Fe County. | Named for its county seat of Los Alamos, New Mexico, which itself is the Spanish name for the cottonwood tree | 19,444 | 109 sq mi (282 km2) | |
LunaCounty | 029 | Deming | 1901 | Parts of Doña Ana County and Grant County. | Solomon Luna (1858–1912), the largest land owner in the county at the time of its creation; itself Spanish for moon | 25,316 | 2,965 sq mi (7,679 km2) | |
McKinleyCounty | 031 | Gallup | 1899 | Part of Bernalillo County. | William McKinley (1843–1901), the twenty-fifth president of the United States | 68,797 | 5,449 sq mi (14,113 km2) | |
MoraCounty | 033 | Mora | 1860 | Part of Taos County. | Named for its county seat of Mora, New Mexico, which is itself named after lo de mora, the Spanish term for blackberry | 4,123 | 1,931 sq mi (5,001 km2) | |
OteroCounty | 035 | Alamogordo | 1899 | Parts of Doña Ana County and Lincoln County. | Miguel A. Otero (1829-1882), territorial delegate to U. S. Congress or Miguel Antonio Otero (II) (1859–1944), 16th Governor of New Mexico Territory from 1897 to 1906 | 68,835 | 6,627 sq mi (17,164 km2) | |
QuayCounty | 037 | Tucumcari | 1903 | Part of Guadalupe County. | Matthew Stanley Quay (1833–1904), a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania who supported New Mexico's statehood | 8,510 | 2,855 sq mi (7,394 km2) | |
Rio ArribaCounty | 039 | Tierra Amarilla | 1852 | One of the nine original counties. | Named for its location on the upper Rio Grande (Río Arriba means "upstream" or "up the river" in Spanish) | 39,876 | 5,858 sq mi (15,172 km2) | |
RooseveltCounty | 041 | Portales | 1903 | Parts of Chaves County and Guadalupe County. | Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), the twenty-sixth president of the United States | 18,787 | 2,449 sq mi (6,343 km2) | |
SandovalCounty | 043 | Bernalillo | 1903 | Part of Bernalillo County. | Named for the Sandoval family, prominent seventeenth-century Spanish landowners | 155,936 | 3,710 sq mi (9,609 km2) | |
San JuanCounty | 045 | Aztec | 1887 | Part of Rio Arriba County. | San Juan River, itself named after the Catholic saint | 120,675 | 5,514 sq mi (14,281 km2) | |
San MiguelCounty | 047 | Las Vegas | 1852 | One of the nine original counties. | San Miguel de Bado Catholic Church, the first in the area | 26,668 | 4,717 sq mi (12,217 km2) | |
Santa FeCounty | 049 | Santa Fe | 1852 | One of the nine original counties. | Named after the city of Santa Fe whose full Spanish name is “La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Assisi” or “The royal city of the holy faith of St. Francis of Assisi” | 155,956 | 1,909 sq mi (4,944 km2) | |
SierraCounty | 051 | Truth or Consequences | 1884 | Parts of Doña Ana County and Socorro County. | Possibly named for the Black Range. (Sierra is mountain range in Spanish.) | 11,488 | 4,180 sq mi (10,826 km2) | |
SocorroCounty | 053 | Socorro | 1852 | One of the nine original counties. | Spanish term meaning "aid," which refers to the help Native Americans gave to starving travelers | 15,963 | 6,647 sq mi (17,216 km2) | |
TaosCounty | 055 | Taos | 1852 | One of the nine original counties. | Named for its county seat of Taos, New Mexico, which in turn was named for the nearby Taos Pueblo, an ancient Native American village. Taos is red willow in the Tiwa language | 34,405 | 2,203 sq mi (5,706 km2) | |
TorranceCounty | 057 | Estancia | 1903 | Parts of Bernalillo County, Valencia County, and Socorro County. | Francis J. Torrance (1859–1919), the developer of the New Mexico Central Railroad | 15,633 | 3,345 sq mi (8,664 km2) | |
UnionCounty | 059 | Clayton | 1893 | Parts of Colfax County, Mora County and San Miguel County. | Named for the "union" of the three counties which donated land to form the new county | 3,964 | 3,830 sq mi (9,920 km2) | |
ValenciaCounty | 061 | Los Lunas | 1852 | One of the nine original counties. | Named for the town of Valencia, New Mexico, which is itself named for Valencia, Spain | 79,141 | 1,068 sq mi (2,766 km2) |
Albuquerque, also known as ABQ, Burque, and the Duke City, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico. Founded in 1706 as La Villa de Alburquerque by Santa Fe de Nuevo México governor Francisco Cuervo y Valdés, and named in honor of Francisco Fernández de la Cueva, 10th Duke of Alburquerque and Viceroy of New Spain, it served as an outpost on El Camino Real linking Mexico City to the northernmost territories of New Spain.
Santa Fe de Nuevo México was a province of the Spanish Empire and New Spain, and later a territory of independent Mexico. The first capital was San Juan de los Caballeros from 1598 until 1610, and from 1610 onward the capital was La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asís.
Santa Fe County is a county located in the U.S. state of New Mexico. As of the 2020 census, the population was 154,823, making it New Mexico's third-most populous county, after Bernalillo County and Doña Ana County. Its county seat is Santa Fe, the state capital.
Sandoval County is a county located in the U.S. state of New Mexico. As of the 2020 census, the population was 148,834, making it the fourth-most populous county in New Mexico. The county seat is Bernalillo.
Santo Domingo Pueblo, also known Kewa Pueblo is a federally recognized tribe of Native American Pueblo people in northern New Mexico. A population of 2,456 live in structures some of which date from circa 1700; in Sandoval County described by the U.S. Census Bureau as a census-designated place.
The Territory of New Mexico was an organized incorporated territory of the United States from September 9, 1850, until January 6, 1912. It was created from the U.S. provisional government of New Mexico, as a result of Nuevo México becoming part of the American frontier after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. It existed with varying boundaries until the territory was admitted to the Union as the U.S. state of New Mexico in 1912. This jurisdiction was an organized, incorporated territory of the US for nearly 62 years, the longest period of any territory in the contiguous United States.
The Mexican Cession is the region in the modern-day Western United States that Mexico previously controlled, then ceded to the United States in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 after the Mexican–American War. This region had not been part of the areas east of the Rio Grande that had been claimed by the Republic of Texas, which had been claiming independence since its Texas Revolution of 1836 and subsequent brief war for independence, followed afterwards a decade later by the American annexation and admitted statehood in 1845. It had not specified the southern and western boundary of the new state of Texas with New Mexico consisting of roughly 529,000 square miles (1,370,000 km2), not including any Texas lands, the Mexican Cession was the third-largest acquisition of territory in U.S. history, surpassed only by the 827,000-square-mile (2,140,000 km2) Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and the later 586,000-square-mile (1,520,000 km2) Alaska Purchase from Russia in 1867.
The Oklahoma Panhandle is a salient in the extreme northwestern region of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. Its constituent counties are, from west to east, Cimarron County, Texas County and Beaver County. As with other salients in the United States, its name comes from the similarity of its shape to the handle of a pan. Its largest city is Guymon in Texas County. Black Mesa State Park, located in Cimarron County, is the highest point in the state. Other points of interest include Beaver Dunes Park, Optima Lake, and the Optima National Wildlife Refuge. Oklahoma Panhandle State University is ten miles away from Guymon.
Rio Rancho is the largest and most populous city in Sandoval County, part of the expansive Albuquerque metropolitan area, in the U.S. state of New Mexico. A small portion of the city extends into northern Bernalillo County.
The Albuquerque Metropolitan Statistical Area, sometimes referred to as Tiguex, is a metropolitan area in central New Mexico centered on the city of Albuquerque. The metro comprises four counties: Bernalillo, Sandoval, Torrance, and Valencia. As of the 2010 United States Census, the MSA had a population of 887,077. The population is estimated to be 923,630 as of July 1, 2020, making Greater Albuquerque the 61st-largest MSA in the nation. The Albuquerque MSA forms a part of the larger Albuquerque–Santa Fe–Los Alamos combined statistical area with a 2020 estimated population of 1,165,181, ranked 49th-largest in the country.
The following is an alphabetical list of articles related to the U.S. state of New Mexico.
The Rio Grande Trail is a proposed long distance trail along the Rio Grande in the U.S. state of New Mexico. The river extends over 1,800 total miles, some 700 miles (1,100 km) of which pass through the heart of New Mexico. It is the state's primary drainage feature and most valuable natural and cultural resource. The river and its bosque provide a wide variety of recreation, including hunting and fishing, birdwatching, river rafting, hiking, biking, and horseback riding. The river also flows through or beside numerous spectacular and geologically interesting landforms, the result of extensive volcanism and erosion of the valley within the Rio Grande Rift. Although some trail advocates would like to see the trail extended the full distance through New Mexico, from the Colorado border to the United States–Mexico border, the portion proposed for initial development extends 300 miles (480 km), from Bernalillo south to Las Cruces.
Under the provisions of the Kearny Code as promulgated in 1846, the first legislature of New Mexico commenced its session on December 6, 1847. The Council consisted of seven members, with Antonio Sandoval, of Bernalillo County, as president, and the House of twenty-one members, with W. Z. Angney as speaker.
The 1932 United States presidential election in New Mexico took place on November 8, 1932. All contemporary forty-eight states were part of the 1932 United States presidential election. State voters chose three electors to represent them in the Electoral College, which voted for President and Vice President.
The COVID-19 pandemic was confirmed to have reached the U.S. state of New Mexico on March 11, 2020. On December 23, 2020, the New Mexico Department of Health reported 1,174 new COVID-19 cases and 40 deaths, bringing the cumulative statewide totals to 133,242 cases and 2,243 deaths since the start of the pandemic. During the last quarter of 2020, COVID-19 hospitalizations in New Mexico increased, reaching a peak of 947 hospitalizations on December 3.