Added up state by state, the October 2026 edition of the county index holds 131,017,319 property records in 3,142 counties and county equivalents, spread across 51 jurisdictions: the 50 states and the District of Columbia. This report lays the states side by side: how many records each holds, how many counties those records are divided into, and how large a typical county file is in each.
Texas has the largest total, 11,713,651 records or 8.9% of the national figure. District of Columbia has the smallest, 215,777. Ranked from the top, 10 states account for half of all records in the country; the other 41 hold the rest.
- Property records, all states
- 131,017,319
- Counties and equivalents
- 3,142
- Average records per county
- 41,699
- States holding half of all records
- 10
Source: county index. Average is the state’s records divided by its counties, rounded. Largest and smallest are by record count; a state filed as a single county-level area shows a dash for smallest.
Totals, largest to smallest
Figure 1 draws the same totals as bars, scaled to the largest state, so the distance between neighbours in the ranking is easier to see. Texas has 54 times as many records as District of Columbia. 25 of the 51 have more records per county than the national average of 41,699, a figure pulled upward by the largest files: the median county holds 13,414.
How many counties each state has
The number of counties in a state reflects how that state drew its local boundaries, not how much property it contains, and the range is wide. Texas has the most, 254. Among states with more than one, Delaware has the fewest, 3. The District of Columbia is filed as a single county-level area, so one file covers the whole jurisdiction.
For a buyer, the county count decides how finely a state can be bought. A state with many counties can be taken in small pieces, a few small counties at a time. A state with few counties comes in larger blocks, each bought whole.
Average file size
Dividing each state’s records by its number of counties gives the average size of a county file there. The District of Columbia has the highest average, about 215,777 records per county. North Dakota has the lowest, about 5,661. A high average means a state’s records are packed into relatively few counties; a low one means many small files.
Averages hide the spread inside each state, which is why the table also names the largest and smallest county in every state. Read together, the two columns show whether a state is dominated by one large file or divided fairly evenly. Among states with more than one county, the largest county’s share of its state total is highest in Nevada, at 67.8% (Clark County), and lowest in Mississippi, at 7.8% (Hinds County).
Where one county dominates
In 4 states, the largest county alone holds more than half of the state’s records: Nevada, Hawaii, Arizona and Rhode Island. At the other extreme, in 8 states no single county holds as much as a tenth of the total, so records there are spread across many files. Table 2 lists the states where the largest county’s share is highest.
| State | Largest county | Its records | Share of state | Counties in state |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nevada | Clark County | 830,142 | 67.8% | 17 |
| Hawaii | Honolulu County | 313,108 | 58.5% | 4 |
| Arizona | Maricopa County | 1,612,180 | 53.9% | 15 |
| Rhode Island | Providence County | 194,681 | 50.5% | 5 |
| Delaware | New Castle County | 215,539 | 45.3% | 3 |
| Illinois | Cook County | 1,786,262 | 36.4% | 102 |
| Utah | Salt Lake County | 394,015 | 32.4% | 29 |
| Alaska | Anchorage Municipality County | 89,992 | 31.6% | 30 |
| New Mexico | Bernalillo County | 245,055 | 27.7% | 33 |
| Nebraska | Douglas County | 213,610 | 26.3% | 93 |
Source: county index. States filed as a single county-level area are excluded.
Using the table to plan a purchase
The columns answer three questions in order. The state total sizes the market. The county count shows how finely it can be divided. The largest-county column shows whether one file carries most of it. Where one county dominates, a single subscription reaches most of a state’s property; where records are spread evenly, covering the same share takes many counties.
The five-county bundle makes the point concrete. Among the 47 states with more than 5 counties, there are 18 in which the five largest counties together hold at least half of the state’s records, so one $49/mo bundle of those five covers most of that market. In the rest, the five largest files leave most records in smaller counties, and the state page, which lists every county with its count, is the place to choose which of them to add.
Reading the table
All figures are computed from the county index for the October 2026 edition and recalculated daily, so totals and ranks follow each monthly edition. A record is one property in a county file; the counts are not populations. Each property is counted in the county where it sits, so an owner who holds properties in several counties or states appears once in each of those county files, once per property. States with equal totals are ordered by name. Each state name links to that state’s page, which lists every county alphabetically with its record count, and each county name links to the county’s own page. For the national ranking of individual counties, see the 25 largest county property files; for one state taken apart county by county, see Texas.
States are sized here, but sold by the county
State totals are useful for sizing a market, but this site sells files one county at a time: $19/mo for any single county, or $49/mo for any 5, mixed across states as you like. Buyers who need whole states at once can get statewide files through Acquired Data.
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