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Greater Austin Mission SocietyState of the City

Census County Division · Hays County

Kyle and Buda

Neighbors
132,671
Active churches
55
Residents per church
~2,410

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 55 active congregations in Kyle and Buda today, and about 132,671 neighbors, which is roughly one church for every 2,410 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 Kyle and Buda 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 Kyle and Buda 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 Kyle and Buda Census County Division is the fast-growing I-35 corridor on the northern edge of Hays County, anchored by the cities of Kyle and Buda and stretching east into the small farming community of Uhland. Its population is 132,671, making it one of the larger CCDs in the Austin MSA outside of Austin itself, and the largest of the three CCDs that share Hays County. The division has grown from a pair of late-nineteenth-century rail towns into one of the most active suburban growth fronts in Greater Austin, with new subdivisions filling the ground between the historic squares of Kyle and Buda and the eastern ranchland still in production.

The population is young, family-oriented, and rooted in homeownership. Median age is 34.8, meaningfully below the MSA median of 36, and the male and female medians track closely at 34.2 and 35.7. Households average 2.79 persons per household, slightly above the MSA figure of 2.5, and family households make up 71.2 percent of all households. Married-couple families are 53.5 percent of all households, well above the MSA share. The CCD contains 47,492 households and 48,625 housing units, with a median owner-occupied home value of $367,800. That figure sits about 21 percent below the MSA median of $465,000 and is one of the more accessible points of homeownership in Greater Austin. Owner-occupied housing is 75.2 percent of occupied units, well above the MSA figure of 58.3 percent. Roughly 80.5 percent of the housing stock has been built since 2000, and 54.0 percent has been built since 2010.

Race and ethnicity in Kyle and Buda make this one of the most demographically distinctive CCDs in the metro. Hispanic or Latino residents are 47.6 percent of the population, Non-Hispanic White residents are 42.7 percent, Non-Hispanic Black residents are 4.5 percent, residents of two or more races are 2.6 percent, and Non-Hispanic Asian residents are 1.7 percent. Hispanic residents form the largest single group and have grown into a plurality of the CCD. Foreign-born residents are 11.6 percent of the population, somewhat below the MSA figure of 16.2 percent, with Latin America by far the largest origin region. The Spanish that fills classrooms, kitchens, and pews across this corridor is not a recent arrival to Hays County. It is the long Tejano inheritance of South Central Texas, deepened in the past two decades by new families settling into Plum Creek, Bunton Creek, the Buda ETJ, and the Uhland farmland that runs east to Caldwell County.

Economically, the CCD is an affluent commuter region. Median household income is $104,875, a touch above the MSA's $100,431, and per capita income is $45,190. The poverty rate is 7.6 percent, below the MSA's 9.8 percent. Bachelor's degree or higher attainment is 37.9 percent, below the metro rate of 45 percent, and high school or higher attainment is 91.2 percent. The most telling number in Kyle and Buda's economic picture is the commute. Mean travel time to work is 35.6 minutes, more than 8 minutes longer than the MSA average and one of the longest commutes of any CCD in the region. Roughly 30.2 percent of workers travel 45 minutes or more each way. The labor force participation rate is 73.8 percent, with 72,111 employed civilian workers and an unemployment rate of 3.2 percent. All 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, Kyle and Buda is one of only two CCDs where Hispanic residents form the largest single ethnic group, alongside its sister CCD of San Marcos to the south. Compared to Austin proper, Kyle and Buda is meaningfully more Hispanic, less White, dramatically higher in homeownership, and significantly more affordable on a per-household basis. Compared to Round Rock and Georgetown across the MSA, Kyle and Buda is younger, more Hispanic, less educated by bachelor's-degree attainment, and carries a longer commute. Compared to its closest CCD neighbor, Dripping Springs and Wimberley to the west, Kyle and Buda is younger, denser, more diverse, and sits squarely on the I-35 growth axis rather than along the Hill Country edge.

The deltas from the MSA tell the story. Hispanic population share is 47.6 percent, up from 32.2 percent at the MSA level. Non-Hispanic White share is 42.7 percent, well below the MSA figure of roughly 49 percent. Median home value is $367,800, compared with $465,000 for the metro. Homeownership is 75.2 percent, well above the MSA's 58.3 percent. Persons per household are 2.79, compared with 2.5. Mean commute is 35.6 minutes, up from 27.3 minutes. Bachelor's degree attainment is 37.9 percent, below the metro rate of 45 percent. Median household income is $104,875, a touch above the MSA's $100,431. Roughly 80.5 percent of housing has been built since 2000. The composite portrait is of a CCD functioning as the metro's southern affordability release valve, absorbing young, Hispanic-plurality, family-anchored households who work in Austin, San Marcos, North Austin, and the Tesla and tech corridors that ring the metro.

Kyle and Buda also carries a specific cultural layering that no other CCD in the metro shares in quite the same way. The region holds two distinct historic small-town centers, both founded along the International-Great Northern Railroad in the early 1880s. Buda was platted in 1881 and incorporated in 1948, with First Baptist Church Buda since 1882, Buda United Methodist Church since 1880, and Hays Hills Baptist Church since 1882 forming the Anglo Protestant spine of the old town. Kyle was founded in 1880, with First Baptist Church Kyle since 1872 even predating the town itself, Kyle United Methodist Church since 1880, and Immanuel Baptist Church since 1886 anchoring the Anglo Protestant corner of the city. The Catholic presence is older still in many family lines, carried forward today by Santa Cruz Catholic Church in Buda since 1941, St. Anthony Marie de Claret Catholic Church in Kyle since 1909, and the Church of St Michael in the Uhland farmland since 1924, all of which serve bilingual English and Spanish congregations. St John's Lutheran Church in Uhland has been present since 1889, originally as an independent German Lutheran congregation and now affiliated with the LCMS. The Church in Kyle and Buda is not a single story. It is two old town stories overlaid with one of the largest Spanish-language congregational footprints in the metro.

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.

  • Hispanic or Latino47.6%
  • Non-Hispanic White42.7%
  • Non-Hispanic Black4.5%
  • Two or more races2.6%
  • Non-Hispanic Asian1.7%
  • Some other race0.7%

Metro share, for comparison

  • Population

    Kyle and Buda132,671
    Austin metro2,426,592

    2026 edition, ACS 2020-2024

  • Median age

    Kyle and Buda34.8
    Austin metro36.0

    2026 edition, ACS 2020-2024

  • Median household income

    Kyle and Buda$104,875
    Austin metro$100,431

    2026 edition, ACS 2020-2024

  • Hispanic or Latino

    Kyle and Buda47.6%
    Austin metro32.2%

    2026 edition, ACS 2020-2024

  • Non-Hispanic White

    Kyle and Buda42.7%
    Austin metro48.7%

    2026 edition, ACS 2020-2024

  • Active churches

    Kyle and Buda55
    Austin metro1,151 (metro total)

    Our church database, 2026-08-30

  • Residents per church

    Kyle and Buda~2,410
    Austin metro~2,060 (fifteen divisions)

    Both sources

The others who serve here

You share Kyle and Buda with congregations across 11 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.

Kyle and Buda has 53 active churches serving approximately 132,671 residents, for a ratio of roughly 1 church per 2,503 residents. That figure sits close to the metro-wide average of one church per 2,161 residents, though it still trails the pace of a region whose housing has grown faster than its gospel footprint, where new subdivisions have filled in along the I-35 frontage roads and FM 1626 corridor. Among these active churches, a substantial number carry too little public information to be known well, so the count says more about presence than about health. We believe the primary missional needs in Kyle and Buda are threefold. First, this region needs many more gospel-preaching churches, planted with care and built for the long haul, to meet the gospel deficit created by two decades of explosive housing growth on both sides of I-35. Second, the existing congregations of Kyle and Buda need deeper relational connection to one another across denominational, ethnic, and language lines. Third, the unusually large cluster of Spanish-language and bilingual congregations in this CCD needs both strengthening in its own right and deeper bonds of shared mission with the English-speaking churches that share its streets.

55 congregations across 11 denominational families.

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

Kyle and Buda 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 Kyle and Buda, much of this ecosystem sits a drive north in Austin or south in San Marcos rather than inside the corridor itself. A young, fast-growing, heavily Hispanic bedroom community can reach the metro's campus, mercy, and church-planting networks along the I-35 spine, and the deep Spanish-language congregational cluster here is a strength that citywide bilingual and family ministries could help resource. The gaps worth praying toward are local, because almost no mercy, foster-care, recovery, or family ministry is based inside the CCD, so pray for planting to keep pace with the rooftops and for bilingual mercy and family ministry to take root on this ground rather than remaining a commute away.

Ministries at work here

Alongside the congregations, 2 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.

Nonprofits1 organization

  • Ancora MinistriesFood Securitylocation unverified
    WebsiteSuggest a correction
    About

    Ancora Ministries is a Kyle-based Christian nonprofit that describes itself as a mission organization working to bring nutrition and health programs to vulnerable populations in Guatemala and in its local community. Its Central Texas work centres on weekend food backpacks for schoolchildren across Hays County and neighbouring districts, alongside preschool and elementary nutrition, clean water and cooking-stove programs in Guatemala.

    Address
    P.O. Box 798, Kyle, TX 78640
    Website
    Open the website
    Division
    Kyle and Buda

    Open the full recordSuggest a correction

Know a nonprofit we have missed? Tell us.

Christian Schools1 school

Know a school 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 Kyle and Buda, write info@missionatx.org. A correction and an introduction are equally welcome.

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

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

Open the Kyle and Buda prayer guide