Sterling County Texas map
31.84° N · 101.06° W · County seat: Sterling City · 923 sq mi
Sterling County had 1,372 people in 2020, which makes it the ninth-least populous county in Texas, and 1,111 of them live in Sterling City. It sits on the divide where the North Concho River begins its run to San Angelo, and the Census Bureau credits the whole 923 square miles with essentially no surface water at all.
Sterling City sits at the crossing of US-87 and SH-158, near the center of the county. The North Concho runs southeast from here toward San Angelo.
Where Sterling County is
The Texas legislature carved Sterling County out of Tom Green County in 1891 and named it for W. S. Sterling, a buffalo hunter and early rancher on this stretch of the plains. It sits where the Permian Basin meets the northwestern corner of the Concho Valley, on the shoulder of the Edwards Plateau.
Going clockwise from north: Mitchell, then Coke to the east, Tom Green to the southeast and south, Reagan southwest, Glasscock west and Howard northwest. San Angelo is 45 miles southeast down US-87 and Big Spring is 38 miles northwest up the same road; Midland is 61 miles northwest and Odessa 77 miles west.
Towns
| Place | Type | Population (2020) |
|---|---|---|
| Sterling City (county seat) | City | 1,111 |
Sterling City is the county's only incorporated place and holds 81 percent of its population. Everyone else lives on ranches. The county has one school district, Sterling City ISD, and the 2024 Census estimate of 1,387 is slightly above the 2020 count — one of the few West Texas counties not shrinking.
Roads
- US-87 – the main street of the county, running northwest to Big Spring and I-20, southeast to San Angelo. Almost all through traffic uses it.
- SH-158 – west from Sterling City through Garden City in Glasscock County to Midland, the working route into the oilfield.
- SH-163 – south from Sterling City toward Water Valley and on to Ozona, crossing the plateau country.
The head of the North Concho
The North Concho River rises in the draws west and north of Sterling City and flows southeast out of the county toward San Angelo, where it is impounded as O. C. Fisher Lake and then joins the Middle and South Concho. Sterling County is the top of that watershed: no river enters it, and everything that leaves does so by way of the North Concho or, on the northern edge, toward the Colorado.
That position explains the water figures. The Census Gazetteer records 923 square miles of land and effectively zero square miles of water — no reservoir, no permanent lake, and a river that runs only after rain. Ranches here depend on windmills and stock tanks, and the county has never had an irrigation district.
Ranching and the oilfield edge
Land use is dominated by large cattle and sheep operations working grama and mesquite range, the pattern that has held since the county organized in 1891. Wool and mohair moved through San Angelo, and Sterling County ranch families still sell into that market.
The county also sits on the southeastern rim of the Permian Basin. Oil and gas production along SH-158 toward Glasscock County has come and gone with prices since the 1940s, and the county's tax base leans heavily on mineral values rather than on its 1,372 residents.