Real County Texas map

The county occupies the southern edge of the Edwards Plateau where it breaks into canyons, in the southwestern corner of the Hill Country. Only four counties border it: Kerr northeast, Bandera east, Uvalde south and Edwards west. Kerrville is 43 miles northeast, Del Rio 73 miles southwest, San Antonio 84 miles southeast and Fredericksburg 64 miles northeast.

Real County is one of the last counties Texas created — 1913, cut from parts of Bandera, Edwards and Kerr. It is named for Julius Real, a Kerr County rancher and state senator who pushed the bill through, and it is pronounced locally as two syllables, ree-AL. Population has barely moved in a century: the 2024 Census estimate, 2,772, is within a few dozen of the 2020 count.

The Frio River rises in the north of the county from springs on the plateau and runs south through a steep-walled valley past Leakey and Rio Frio before crossing into Uvalde County at Concan. The canyon floor is a narrow strip of pecan and cypress bottom; above it the walls climb to flat divides covered in cedar and live oak. Almost everything in the eastern half of the county — the town, the highway, the cabins, the church camps including the Alto Frio encampment southeast of Leakey — is squeezed into that strip. The river is clear, spring-fed and cold, and summer river tourism supports much of the local economy.

The county's western half belongs to the Nueces River, which runs south past Camp Wood in a second canyon. Between the two drainages the plateau is unbroken ranch country with almost no settlement.

Three ranch-to-market roads meeting near Leakey — RM 335, RM 336 and RM 337 — form a loop of about 100 miles that motorcyclists and drivers call the Twisted Sisters. RM 337 runs east from Leakey over the divides to Vanderpool and Medina and west to Camp Wood; RM 336 climbs north out of the canyon to SH-41; RM 335 comes back south from SH-41 toward Barksdale and Camp Wood. The appeal is elevation change and switchbacks, both rare in Texas, plus long stretches without a town, a shoulder or cell service. There are cattle guards, low-water crossings and free-ranging goats on these roads, and no fuel between Leakey and Camp Wood on most of the loop.

Lost Maples State Natural Area lies on the county's eastern boundary on the Sabinal River near Vanderpool, straddling the line with Bandera County. Its bigtooth maples are a relict stand from a cooler climate, and the park's autumn colour draws enough visitors that entry is by reservation in late October and November.