Killeen is a city located in Bell County Texas. Killeen has a 2023 population of 162,900. Killeen is currently growing at a rate of 2.1% annually and its population has increased by 6.44% since the most recent census, which recorded a population of 153,044 in 2020.
The average household income in Killeen is $64,686 with a poverty rate of 15.73%. The median rental costs in recent years comes to - per month, and the median house value is -. The median age in Killeen is 29.6 years, 28.7 years for males, and 30.8 years for females.
Situated in Bell County, Texas, Killeen is the 21st most populous city in Texas. The city is located about 70 miles north of Austin and 3 miles outside the Fort Hood military base. The economy of Killeen depends largely on the cantonment of Fort Hood, located directly adjacent to the city. Over the years Killeen has seen rapid population growth, due to the high influx of soldiers and their families.
Killeen, TX, was ranked in 2007 as the most affordable housing market in the whole of the United States with an average cost of $136,725.
In 1950, there were no blacks living in the city of Killeen until the construction of Camp Hood. A few years into the decade, Marlboro Heights, an all black subdivision was developed, and in 1956 the city school board voted in favor of integration. Today, almost 40% of Killeen's population is black and the city has almost closed the white and black homeownership gap (https://money.cnn.com/2018/04/17/news/economy/kileen-texas-homeownership/index.html).
At the turn of the 20th century, Killeen saw a population of around only 800. Today, this has grown to over 145,000, due mainly to the military presence in the city. Between 1940 and 1950, the population of Killeen had gone up by a multiple of over 5, from 1,300 in 1940 to over 7,045 in 1950, with an annual growth rate of 18.41%.
This population only continued to grow in the decades that followed, reaching over 23,000 in 1960, over 35,000 in 1970, over 46,000 in 1980, over 63,000 in 1990 and almost 87,000 in 1990, more than 10 times that what it was 100 years earlier. It's estimated that the population of the Killeen-Temple-Fort Hood area will grow 23% between 2015 and 2030 to reach 550,000 people.
As the railway expanded its tracks through Texas in 1881, what was a small farming community by the name of Palo Alto soon became a booming town, taking its name from Frank P. Killeen, the railroad’s assistant general manager. In the year that followed, stores, a school, and a saloon had all been built, and by 1884 the town had a hotel, a lumberyard, a blacksmith shop, two saloons, two cotton gins, two gristmills, five general stores, and roughly 350 people.
Killeen remained relatively small and isolated until the 1940s and World War II. The aforementioned Camp Hood was constructed in 1942 (renamed Fort Hood in the 1950s) as a training post to meet the demand for soldiers. This brought with it people in the thousands, not only from soldiers and their families, but contractors, laborers, and construction workers also, turning Killeen almost overnight into a military boom town. By the 1970s, Killeen had grown into a thriving city of over 35,000.
According to the most recent ACS, the racial composition of Killeen was:
3.31
Average Family Size
2.69
Average Household Size
45.0%
Rate of Home Ownership
Married
Male
Female
NonFamily
owner
renter
Only English
Spanish
Other Indo-European Languages
Asian and Pacific Island Languages
Other Languages
76.2% of Killeen residents speak only English, while 23.8% speak other languages. The non-English language spoken by the largest group is Spanish, which is spoken by 17.05% of the population.
15.73%
Overall Poverty Rate
13.98%
Male Poverty Rate
17.41%
Female Poverty Rate
The race most likely to be in poverty in Killeen is Native, with 34.53% below the poverty level.
The race least likely to be in poverty in Killeen is Asian, with 14% below the poverty level.
The poverty rate among those that worked full-time for the past 12 months was 4.46%. Among those working part-time, it was 19.57%, and for those that did not work, the poverty rate was 21.81%.
Married
Widowed
Divorced
Separated
NeverMarried
48.1%
Overall Marriage Rate
51.4%
Male Marriage Rate
45.1%
Female Marriage Rate
male
female
The age group where males are most likely to be married is 55-64, while the female age group most likely to be married is 45-54.
Married
Widowed
Divorced
Separated
NeverMarried
Less Than 9th Grade
High School Graduate
Some College
Bachelors or Greater
8.75%
Veteran Poverty Rate
28.17%
Veteran Disability Rate
LaborForceParticipation
67.7%
Labor Force Participation
53.5%
Employment Rate
10.6%
Unemployment Rate
LaborForceParticipation
LaborForceParticipation
Europe
Asia
Africa
Oceania
Latin America
North America
Non citizens include legal permanent residents (green card holders), international students, temporary workers, humanitarian migrants, and illegal immigrants.
Europe
Asia
Africa
Oceania
Latin America
North America
35%
Born in Killeen
87.34%
Native Born
8.7%
Foreign Born
3.78%
Non Citizen
4.92%
Naturalized
87.34% of Killeen residents were born in the United States, with 35% having been born in Texas. 3.78% of residents are not US citizens. Of those not born in the United States, the largest percentage are from Latin America.