Fort Bend County, Texas


Fort Bend County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. The county was founded on December 29, 1837, and organized the next year. It is named for a blockhouse at a bend of the Brazos River. The community developed around the fort in early days. The county seat is Richmond. The largest city located entirely within the county borders is Sugar Land. The largest city by population in the county is Houston, but most of Houston's population is located in neighboring Harris County.
Fort Bend County is included in the Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land metropolitan statistical area. As of the 2020 census, its population was 822,779, making it the state's eighth-most populous county, and was estimated to be 958,434 in 2024. In 2017, Forbes ranked it the fifth-fastest growing county in the United States.

History

Before European settlement, the area was inhabited by Karankawa Indians. Spanish colonists generally did not reach the area during their colonization, settling more in South Texas.
After Mexico achieved independence from Spain, Anglo-Americans started entering from the east. In 1822, a group of Stephen F. Austin's colonists, headed by William Travis, built a fort at the present site of Richmond. The fort was called Fort Bend because it was built in the bend of the Brazos River. The city of Richmond was incorporated under the Republic of Texas, along with 19 other towns, in 1837. Fort Bend County was created from parts of Austin, Harris, and Brazoria Counties in 1838.
Fort Bend developed a plantation economy based on cotton as the commodity crop. Planters had numerous African-American slaves as laborers. By the 1850s, Fort Bend was one of six majority-black counties in Texas. In 1860, the slave population totaled 4,127, more than twice that of the 2,016 whites. Few free Blacks lived there, as Texas refused them entry.
While the area began to attract White immigrants in the late 19th century, it remained majority-Black during and after Reconstruction. Whites endeavored to control freedmen and their descendants through violence and intimidation. Freedmen and their sympathizers supported the Republican Party because of emancipation, electing their candidates to office. The state legislature was still predominately White. By the 1880s, most White residents belonged to the Democratic Party. Factional tensions were fierce, as political elements split largely along racial lines. The Jaybirds, representing the majority of the Whites, struggled to regain control from the Woodpeckers, who were made up of some Whites who were consistently elected to office by the majority of African Americans, as several had served as Republican officials during Reconstruction.
Fort Bend County was the site of the Jaybird–Woodpecker War in 1888–89. After a few murders were committed, the political feud culminated in a gun battle at the courthouse on August 16, 1889, when several more people were killed and the Woodpeckers were routed from the county seat.
Governor Lawrence Sullivan Ross sent in militia forces and declared martial law. With his support, the Jaybirds ordered a list of certain Blacks and Woodpecker officials out of the county, overthrowing the local government. The Jaybirds took over county offices and established a "White-only pre-primary", disenfranchising African Americans from the only competitive contests in the county. This device lasted until 1950, when Willie Melton and Arizona Fleming won a lawsuit against the practice in United States District Court, though it was overturned on appeal. In 1953, they ultimately won their suit when the Supreme Court of the United States declared the Jaybird primary unconstitutional in Terry v. Adams, the last of the White primary cases.

20th century to present

In the 1960s, the first of several master-planned communities that came to define the county were developed, marking the beginning of its transformation from a largely rural county dominated by railroad and oil and gas interests to a major suburban county dominated by service and manufacturing industries. Among the earliest such developments were Sugar Land's Sugar Creek and Missouri City's Quail Valley, whose golf course hosted the Houston Open during the 1973 and 1974 seasons of the PGA Tour. Another was First Colony in Sugar Land, a 9,700-acre development commenced in the 1970s by Houston developer Gerald D. Hines that eventually became the southwest Greater Houston area's main retail hub, anchored by First Colony Mall and Sugar Land Town Square.
Since the 1980s, new communities have continued to develop, with Greatwood, New Territory, and Sienna among the more recent notable developments. In addition to continued development in the eastern part of the county around Sugar Land and Missouri City, the Greater Katy area began to experience rapid growth and expansion into Fort Bend County in the 1990s, led by the development of Cinco Ranch. By 2010, the county's population exceeded 500,000, and it had become the second-largest county in the greater Houston area.
In 2017, Hurricane Harvey caused significant flooding in Fort Bend County, leading to the evacuation of 200,000 residents and over 10,000 rescues. The unprecedented flooding, the result of record rainfall and overflow from the Brazos River and Barker Reservoir, resulted in damage to or destruction of over 6,800 homes in the county.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the county has a total area of, of which are covered by water. It is the 181st-largest of the 236 counties in Texas by total area.

Adjacent counties

Cities (multiple counties)

From 1930 to 1950, the county showed a decline in the rate of expansion and even a decrease in population. This was a period when many African Americans migrated in the second wave of the Great Migration from Texas and other parts of the South to the West Coast, where a buildup in the defense industry provided more job opportunities. Other minorities settled in the county during its residential development, and African Americans are now a minority.

Recent estimates

As of the third quarter of 2024, the median home value in Fort Bend County was $395,730.
As of the 2023 American Community Survey, an estimated 281,259 households are in Fort Bend County, with an average of 3.04 persons per household. The county has a median household income of $113,409. About 8.5% of the county's population lives at or below the poverty line. Fort Bend County has an estimated 66.7% employment rate, with 49.3% of the population holding a bachelor's degree or higher and 91.9% holding a high-school diploma.
The top-five reported ancestries were English, Spanish, Indo-European, Asian and Pacific Islander, and other. The median age in the county was 37.6 years.

Racial and ethnic composition

Race / Ethnicity Pop 1980Pop 1990Pop 2000Pop 2010% 1980% 1990% 2000% 2010
White alone 79,549121,245163,788211,680243,72660.80%53.79%46.21%36.16%29.62%
Black or African American alone 20,13245,67869,579123,267167,96415.39%20.26%19.63%21.06%20.41%
Native American or Alaska Native alone 2764116211,1591,2690.21%0.18%0.18%0.20%0.15%
Asian alone 3,69413,97839,54598,762181,5222.82%6.20%11.16%16.87%22.06%
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander alone 3152971742760.02%0.02%0.03%0.03%0.03%
Other race alone 5082171651,3414,0550.39%0.07%0.15%0.23%0.49%
Mixed race or Multiracial xx5,40710,02525,387xx1.53%1.71%3.09%
Hispanic or Latino 26,65643,89274,871138,967198,58020.37%19.47%21.12%23.74%24.14%
Total130,846225,421354,452585,375822,779100.00%100.00%100.00%100.00%100.00%

2020 census

As of the 2020 census, the county had a population of 822,779, 263,128 households, and 215,579 families. The median age was 37.1 years, 27.4% of residents were under the age of 18, and 12.1% were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 94.8 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 91.4 males age 18 and over.
Of those households, 45.5% had children under the age of 18 living in them, 63.4% were married-couple households, 11.4% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 21.5% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 15.3% of all households were made up of individuals and 5.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.
The population density was, and the 277,910 housing units had an average density of. Of those units, 5.3% were vacant, 77.1% of occupied housing units were owner-occupied, 22.9% were renter-occupied, the homeowner vacancy rate was 2.1%, and the rental vacancy rate was 8.6%.
The racial makeup of the county was 34.3% White, 20.78% Black or African American, 0.56% American Indian and Alaska Native, 22.18% Asian, 0.05% Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, 9.1% from some other race, and 13.0% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race comprised 24.14% of the population.
95.2% of residents lived in urban areas, while 4.8% lived in rural areas.