Skip to content
Greater Austin Mission SocietyState of the City

Census County Division · Travis County

Austin

Neighbors
922,674
Active churches
382
Residents per church
~2,420

2026 edition, ACS 2020-2024 · Our church database, 2026-08-30

If you pastor here, pray here, or have given your years to this place, this page is for you.

We count 382 active congregations in Austin today, and about 922,674 neighbors, which is roughly one church for every 2,420 of them. That is not a scorecard. It is a description of the ground you share, and of how much of it none of you can reach alone.

Start by praying

Before the data, before the strategy, pray. We wrote the Austin prayer guide to be prayed out loud with two or three others, on a rhythm, across whatever lines usually keep you apart. Bring the leaders you already know. Invite one you do not.

Open the Austin prayer guide

The narrative on this page is from the July 2026 edition. Its figures were fixed when it was written, so they can differ from the charts and lists around it, which rebuild monthly from the live database.

Portrait

The Austin Census County Division is the civic, cultural, and economic core of the Greater Austin Metropolitan Statistical Area. With a population of 922,674, it is by far the most populous of the fifteen CCDs in the region, larger than the next two CCDs combined. It is the seat of the Texas state government, the home of the University of Texas at Austin, and the center of one of the nation's fastest-growing technology economies. Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio remain the largest feeder cities, so the urban core is deeply Texan at its roots even as it absorbs national and global influence in real time.

The CCD is younger and more diverse than the surrounding metro. The median age is 34.6, below the metro's 36.0. Non-Hispanic White residents are 45.7 percent of the population; Hispanic or Latino residents are 35.6 percent; Non-Hispanic Black residents are 7.3 percent; Non-Hispanic Asian residents are 6.7 percent; and residents of two or more races are 4.1 percent. Foreign-born residents are 17.9 percent, above the metro's 16.3 percent, and the neighborhoods and congregations of Austin carry a growing global presence in English, Spanish, Mandarin, Korean, Vietnamese, Nepali, Haitian Creole, and many other tongues.

Austin is a city of renters and movement. Owner-occupied homes account for just 45.1 percent of housing, far below the metro's 58.3 percent, and the average household holds only 2.11 people, the smallest of any CCD in the metro and a reflection of the students, young professionals, and single-person households that fill the urban core. Median household income is $92,168, below the metro's $100,431, yet per-capita income is $61,879, above the metro's $56,313, a gap that captures both the high earnings of the technology and knowledge economy and the many single-earner households that make up the city. The median home value is $527,800, well above the metro's $465,000, and the poverty rate is 12.6 percent, above the metro's 9.8 percent. Educational attainment is high, with 56.7 percent of adults holding a bachelor's degree or higher, compared with the metro's 50.9 percent.

The result is a region of striking contrast, where affluence and displacement live on the same block, and where rising costs are steadily reshaping who can afford to call the core home. All demographic figures in this section are from the 2024 five-year ACS release.

What makes this division distinct

Among the fifteen CCDs in the Greater Austin MSA, the Austin CCD stands alone as the urban core. It has the largest population, the most churches, and the most complex ministry landscape in the region. Yet the density of churches has not produced spiritual saturation. Roughly three out of four residents do not regularly attend church, engage with Scripture, or live within an active community of faith, and the city's cultural mood is among the most secular in Texas.

Set beside the suburban CCDs that ring it, Austin is younger, more diverse, more educated, and far less stable in household composition. Where Round Rock and Georgetown is family-stable and majority homeowning, and where Northwest and Southwest Travis are older, wealthier, and predominantly White, the Austin core is a renter's city of students, early-career professionals, and transient newcomers, with only 45 percent of homes owner-occupied and the smallest households in the metro. It carries much of the region's ethnic diversity and nearly all of its concentrated urban poverty.

This is where the intellectual climate of a university town meets the ambition of a technology economy and the daily business of state government, and where a deeply secular cultural posture challenges the Church to be present, clear, and rooted. Churches here must navigate high population turnover, rising costs that price out longtime members and even church properties, the dominance of secular frameworks in the marketplace and the academy, and the constant need to reach and disciple a population that is always arriving and always leaving. The opportunity is immense, and the task is urgent.

The people you are praying for

These are your neighbors, described as honestly as public data allows. Nothing here tells you what to do about them. It tells you who they are, so your prayers can be specific.

  • Non-Hispanic White45.7%
  • Hispanic or Latino35.6%
  • Non-Hispanic Black7.3%
  • Non-Hispanic Asian6.7%
  • Two or more races4.1%

Metro share, for comparison

  • Population

    Austin922,674
    Austin metro2,426,592

    2026 edition, ACS 2020-2024

  • Median age

    Austin34.6
    Austin metro36.0

    2026 edition, ACS 2020-2024

  • Median household income

    Austin$92,168
    Austin metro$100,431

    2026 edition, ACS 2020-2024

  • Non-Hispanic White

    Austin45.7%
    Austin metro48.7%

    2026 edition, ACS 2020-2024

  • Hispanic or Latino

    Austin35.6%
    Austin metro32.2%

    2026 edition, ACS 2020-2024

  • Active churches

    Austin382
    Austin metro1,151 (metro total)

    Our church database, 2026-08-30

  • Residents per church

    Austin~2,420
    Austin metro~2,060 (fifteen divisions)

    Both sources

The others who serve here

You share Austin with congregations across 13 denominational families. Some of them you know. Most of them you probably do not, and that is the ordinary condition of a city, not a failure. We put the list here so you can start.

Drawing the fifteen divisions

Church density and the mission need

Research on gospel saturation suggests that church density is a meaningful proxy for a region's spiritual health. In his book Center Church, Tim Keller notes that a region with one church per 10,000 people sees roughly 1 percent of residents attending regularly. At one church per 1,000 people, that figure rises to 15 to 20 percent, and at one per 500, more than 40 percent attend.

These numbers matter because of what tends to happen in populations. One rough model of this, the diffusion of innovation, describes a kind of tipping point. An idea often struggles to be accepted until somewhere around 16 percent of a population has taken it up, after which it can begin to sustain and spread on its own. The analogy to the gospel is inexact, and the human heart is not a product to be adopted, so we hold the model loosely. But the concept is worth consideration and used often in gospel movements around the world. A region where regular gospel engagement sits far below that threshold may simply lack the critical mass for a movement to take hold, while a region approaching it has the numeric reality from which one can grow. When compared with Keller's ratios, church density becomes a rough way of asking whether a region sits above or below that line, and gives us a guide to how we can pray.

Austin has 356 active churches serving a population of 922,674, for a ratio of roughly one church per 2,592 residents. That density places the urban core well below the threshold associated with robust spiritual engagement and corresponds to an estimated regular attendance rate below 15 percent, consistent with the State of the City report's finding, drawing on Pew Research, that only about a quarter of adults across the metro are practicing Christians. The same report notes that non-Christian identification across the metro has climbed steeply over the past decade. The Greater Austin Mission Society research identifies the Austin CCD, along with Northeast, Northwest, and Southwest Travis, as a current priority for both new church planting and the strengthening of existing congregations. The need here is not a shortage of buildings but a shortage of living, multiplying churches matched to a vast and largely unreached population.

382 congregations across 13 denominational families.

Non-Denominational/Independent111 congregations

Baptist88 congregations

Pentecostal37 congregations

Catholic23 congregations

Methodist23 congregations

Lutheran22 congregations

Presbyterian/Reformed22 congregations

Church of Christ16 congregations

Episcopal15 congregations

Other12 congregations

Disciples of Christ7 congregations

Anglican5 congregations

Eastern Orthodox1 congregation

Serve at a congregation we have missed? Tell us, and we will review and add it.

A kingdom ecosystem

And yet the church was never meant to carry the whole work alone, and the nonprofits and Christian institutions named just above are evidence of it. A region is rarely reached by strong congregations acting in isolation. The same Tim Keller whose density research framed the mission need earlier in this guide also described, in Center Church, what he called a gospel ecosystem, the observation that lasting gospel movements grow not from isolated churches but from a whole interdependent web of gospel work in which churches and the ministries around them each supply something the others need. At the center of that ecosystem are two movements the church herself carries, the planting of new congregations and the renewal of existing ones. Around them grows a wider set of callings that no single church can hold on its own: intercession that keeps the whole work dependent on God, evangelism to those the church has not yet reached, mercy and justice among the poor and vulnerable, faith and work that sends disciples into every corner of the economy, Christian institutions like schools that form the next generation, and leadership development that raises up the pastors and planters still to come.

None of this becomes a movement, though, until the leaders carrying these callings actually know and trust one another. The connective tissue of a kingdom ecosystem is relational, pastors and ministry leaders across traditions who pray together, share what they are learning, and labor toward a common mission rather than guarding their own corner. Where that trust is real, the parts begin to feed one another, and where it is absent, even well-resourced ministries work at cross purposes. Unity here is not a program to be launched but the fruit of a shared mission held long enough for friendship to grow.

The wider Austin kingdom ecosystem

Austin does not carry the whole mission alone. Around every congregation in this CCD sits a citywide gospel ecosystem that any church here can draw on, organized below by the same Keller categories. These are metro-wide ministries whose service area is the region rather than a single division, so the names that follow are illustrative highlights rather than a full directory.

Church networks knit congregations together across the metro, among them Christ Together Greater Austin, the Austin Baptist Association, the Church Ambassador Network of Texas, and the Diocese of Austin. Intercessory ministries keep the whole work dependent on God, including the House of Intercession, HOPE Prayer Ministry, and the Lake Travis Prayer Room. Specialized evangelism is the largest category in the metro and reaches particular fields, with campus and athletic ministries like Cru City Austin, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes across every county, Campus Renewal Ministries, and Launch Global. Justice and mercy ministries carry the poor and vulnerable, among them World Relief, Habitat for Humanity Austin, Unbound Now, and Texas Alliance for Life. Faith and work ministries send disciples into the economy, including the Faith and Work Movement, Faith Driven Entrepreneurs, the National Christian Foundation Austin, and C12 Central Texas. Christian institutions steward long-term formation, such as the Texas Methodist Foundation. And leadership development raises up the next generation of pastors and planters, through the Colson Fellows Program, New Canaan Society Austin, PastorServe, Mission Increase, and the Greater Austin Mission Society.

For the Austin CCD, this citywide ecosystem is a near resource rather than a distant one. More of it is headquartered and active here in the urban core than in any other division of the metro, so the strength to pray toward is largely a matter of connection rather than absence. The gap here is not which ministries exist but whether the church in the core is tied into them: whether the dense campus ministry around the University of Texas is matched by congregations ready to receive and disciple students, whether the many faith-and-work and mercy ministries are known to the churches whose members they could serve, and, most of all, whether a city with one active church for every 2,592 residents will see enough new congregations planted and enough tired ones renewed to close the gap between the number of ministries and the number of people still far from God.

Ministries at work here

Alongside the congregations, 154 organizations serve this division: nonprofits, Christian schools, and the wider ecosystem of ministries. On the map above they are the open rings; the filled dots are churches.

Nonprofits91 organizations

Evangelism/Discipleship17

International Missions8

Foster Care & Adoption6

Homeless & Housing Services6

Broad Services5

Leadership Development5

Pregnancy & Women's Services5

Disability Services4

Community Development3

Criminal Justice3

Faith & Work3

Food Security3

Human Trafficking3

Mental Health & Counseling3

Resource Connection & Distribution3

Youth Development3

Immigrants & Refugees2

Medical & Dental Services2

Recovery Services2

Child & Family Advocacy1

Disaster Services1

Education1

Health & Fitness1

Senior Services1

Know a nonprofit we have missed? Tell us.

Christian Schools30 schools

Know a school we have missed? Tell us.

Ecosystem33 organizations

Know an organization we have missed? Tell us.

From our database as of 2026-08-30. These records have not yet been through the full verification pass the congregations have, so where a record is marked location unverified, the coordinate on file is a placeholder several records share, and we have declined to put a pin on it rather than put it in the wrong place.

Every record we publish for this division, churches and ministries together, in one list.

If you want to go further

We are the Greater Austin Mission Society, and we exist to help leaders across this metro find one another. If something on this page is wrong, or if you want to meet the others praying for Austin, write info@missionatx.org. A correction and an introduction are equally welcome.

The full Census Reporter profile for Austin. How this data is gathered and verified.

You have seen the ground. Now stand watch over it. The Austin prayer guide is written to be prayed out loud with others.

Open the Austin prayer guide