List of counties in New Mexico

Counties of New Mexico
BER CAT CHA CIB COL CUR DEB DOÑ EDD GRA GUA HAR HID LEA LIN LAL LUN MCK MOR OTE QUA RIO ROO SDV SJU SMI SFE SIE SOC TAO TOR UNI VAL
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	County government
Subdivisions	cities, towns, townships, unincorporated communities, indian reservations, Pueblo, census designated place

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. 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

See also: List of New Mexico counties by socioeconomic factors

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	County seat	Est.	Formed from	Etymology	Pop.	Area	Map
Bernalillo County	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)
Catron County	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)
Chaves County	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)
Cibola County	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)
Colfax County	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)
Curry County	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 Baca County	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 Ana County	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)
Eddy County	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)
Grant County	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)
Guadalupe County	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)
Harding County	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)
Hidalgo County	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)
Lea County	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)
Lincoln County	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 Alamos County	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)
Luna County	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)
McKinley County	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)
Mora County	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)
Otero County	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)
Quay County	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 Arriba County	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)
Roosevelt County	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)
Sandoval County	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 Juan County	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 Miguel County	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 Fe County	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)
Sierra County	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)
Socorro County	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)
Taos County	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)
Torrance County	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)
Union County	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)
Valencia County	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)

Former counties

• Arizona County, New Mexico Territory, is mentioned in the 1860 United States Census.
• 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:
  • El Paso County, Texas
  • Worth County, Texas

External links

• "Historical Sidebar: New Mexico Counties". Archived from the original on July 4, 2008.
• Maps of historic New Mexico counties