List of counties in New Mexico

This is a list of the 33 counties in New Mexico. There were originally nine counties formed in 1852. Santa Ana County, New Mexico Territory, one of the nine original counties, was annexed in 1876 to Bernalillo County, New Mexico.

Counties of New Mexico
LocationState of New Mexico
Number33
Populations625 (Harding) – 679,121 (Bernalillo)
Areas109 square miles (280 km2) (Los Alamos) – 6,928 square miles (17,940 km2) (Catron)
GovernmentCounty government
Subdivisionscities, towns, townships, unincorporated communities, indian reservations, Pueblo, census designated place
New Mexico
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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.

List

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
Bernalillo County 001 Albuquerque1852One of the nine original counties.The Gonzales-Bernal family, Spanish nobles who settled the territory in the seventeenth century 679,121 1,166 mi²
(3,020 km²)
Catron County 003 Reserve1921Part of Socorro County.Thomas Benton Catron (1840-1921), a Santa Fe attorney and New Mexico's first U.S. Senator 3,527 6,928 sq mi
(17,943 km2)
Chaves County 005 Roswell1889Part of Lincoln County.Jose Francisco Chaves (1833-1904), a U.S. Army colonel in New Mexico during and after the Civil War 64,615 6,071 sq mi
(15,724 km2)
Cibola County 006 Grants1981Parts of Valencia County, Socorro County, McKinley County, and Catron County.The mythical Seven Cities of Cibola 26,675 4,540 sq mi
(11,759 km2)
Colfax County 007 Raton1869Part of Mora County.Schuyler Colfax (1823-1885), the seventeenth vice president of the United States 11,941 3,757 sq mi
(9,731 km2)
Curry County 009 Clovis1909Parts of Quay County and Roosevelt County.George Curry (1861-1947), a governor of New Mexico Territory from 1907 to 1910 48,954 1,406 sq mi
(3,642 km2)
De Baca County 011 Fort Sumner1917Parts of Chaves County and Guadalupe County.Ezequiel Cabeza de Baca (1864-1917), the second state governor of New Mexico 1,748 2,325 sq mi
(6,022 km2)
Doña Ana County 013 Las Cruces1852One of the nine original counties.Doña Ana Robledo, a seventeenth-century Spanish woman known for her charitable giving to the native population 218,195 3,807 sq mi
(9,860 km2)
Eddy County 015 Carlsbad1887Part of Lincoln County.Charles Eddy (1857 - 1931), a rancher and developer of the area 58,460 4,182 sq mi
(10,831 km2)
Grant County 017 Silver City1868Part of Doña Ana County.Ulysses Simpson Grant (1822-1885), the Civil War general and eighteenth president of the United States 26,998 3,966 sq mi
(10,272 km2)
Guadalupe County 019 Santa Rosa1891Part of San Miguel County.Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patron saint of the Americas 4,300 3,031 sq mi
(7,850 km2)
Harding County 021 Mosquero1921Parts of Mora County and Union County.Warren Gamaliel Harding (1865-1923), the twenty-ninth president of the United States 625 2,126 sq mi
(5,506 km2)
Hidalgo County 023 Lordsburg1920Part 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 4,198 3,446 sq mi
(8,925 km2)
Lea County 025 Lovington1917Parts 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 71,070 4,393 sq mi
(11,378 km2)
Lincoln County 027 Carrizozo1869Part of Socorro County.Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), the sixteenth president of the United States 19,572 4,831 sq mi
(12,512 km2)
Los Alamos County 028 Los Alamos1949Parts 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 19,369 109 sq mi
(282 km2)
Luna County 029 Deming1901Parts 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 23,709 2,965 sq mi
(7,679 km2)
McKinley County 031 Gallup1899Part of Bernalillo County.William McKinley (1843-1901), the twenty-fifth president of the United States 71,367 5,449 sq mi
(14,113 km2)
Mora County 033 Mora1859Part 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 4,521 1,931 sq mi
(5,001 km2)
Otero County 035 Alamogordo1899Parts 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 67,490 6,627 sq mi
(17,164 km2)
Quay County 037 Tucumcari1903Part of Guadalupe County.Matthew Stanley Quay (1833-1904), a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania who supported New Mexico's statehood 8,253 2,855 sq mi
(7,394 km2)
Rio Arriba County 039 Tierra Amarilla1852One of the nine original counties.Named for its location on the upper Rio Grande (Río Arriba means "upstream" or "up the river" in Spanish) 38,921 5,858 sq mi
(15,172 km2)
Roosevelt County 041 Portales1903Parts of Chaves County and Guadalupe County.Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), the twenty-sixth president of the United States 18,500 2,449 sq mi
(6,343 km2)
Sandoval County 043 Bernalillo1903Part of Bernalillo County.Named for the Sandoval family, prominent seventeenth-century Spanish landowners 146,748 3,710 sq mi
(9,609 km2)
San Juan County 045 Aztec1887Part of Rio Arriba County.San Juan River, itself named after the Catholic saint 123,958 5,514 sq mi
(14,281 km2)
San Miguel County 047 Las Vegas1852One of the nine original counties.San Miguel de Bado Catholic Church, the first in the area 27,277 4,717 sq mi
(12,217 km2)
Santa Fe County 049 Santa Fe1852One 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” 150,358 1,909 sq mi
(4,944 km2)
Sierra County 051 Truth or Consequences1884Parts of Doña Ana County and Socorro County.Possibly named for the Black Range. (Sierra is mountain range in Spanish.) 10,791 4,180 sq mi
(10,826 km2)
Socorro County 053 Socorro1852One of the nine original counties.Spanish term meaning "aid," which refers to the help Native Americans gave to starving travelers 16,637 6,647 sq mi
(17,216 km2)
Taos County 055 Taos1852One 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 32,723 2,203 sq mi
(5,706 km2)
Torrance County 057 Estancia1903Parts of Bernalillo County, Valencia County, and Socorro County.Francis J. Torrance (1859 - 1919), the developer of the New Mexico Central Railroad 15,461 3,345 sq mi
(8,664 km2)
Union County 059 Clayton1893Parts 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 4,059 3,830 sq mi
(9,920 km2)
Valencia County 061 Los Lunas1852One of the nine original counties.Named for the town of Valencia, New Mexico, which is itself named for Valencia, Spain 76,688 1,068 sq mi
(2,766 km2)

Former counties
  • Arizona County, New Mexico Territory, is mentioned in the 1860 United States Census.[8]
  • Mesilla County, appears on 1860s-era territorial map encompassing area in present-day Dona Aña, Grant, Hidalgo, Luna, Sierra west of the Rio Grande
  • Santa Ana County (1844–1876) absorbed by Bernalillo County; portions are in present-day McKinley County
  • Santa Fe County, Texas (1848-1850), never organized, included the portion of New Mexico east of the Rio Grande except for southeastern New Mexico east of the Pecos River and south of the Prairie Dog Town Fork Red River as well as the Trans-Pecos and most of the Panhandle regions of Texas, the Oklahoma Panhandle, and portions of Colorado, Kansas, and Wyoming. Before Texas ceded its western lands to the federal government after the Compromise of 1850, the following counties were briefly created from Santa Fe County earlier that year in south-central New Mexico between the Rio Grande and the Pecos:

References
  1. "FIPS Publish 6-4". National Institute of Standards and Technology. Archived from the original on 2013-09-29. Retrieved 2007-08-06.
  2. "EPA County FIPS Code Listing". US Environmental Protection Agency. Retrieved 2007-08-06.
  3. "NACo - Find a county". National Association of Counties. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-08-07.
  4. "NMGenWeb Counties". Rootsweb.com. Archived from the original on 2007-07-02. Retrieved 2007-08-06.
  5. Viva New Mexico County Names Archived 2008-07-04 at the Wayback Machine
  6. "co-est2019-alldata.csv". U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved June 5, 2020.
  7. "New Mexico QuickFacts". U.S. Census Bureau. Archived from the original on 2011-12-27. Retrieved 2007-08-07. (2000 Census)
  8. https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1860/population/1860a-42.pdf
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