Population: 3,886,207

Seat: Houston

Increase (July 2005 - July 2006): 123,363

Houston's economy, closely tied to the oil industry, is enjoying another boom, and much of the county's population increase is occurring in the city's outlying suburbs.

The city itself has gained only about 60,000 since 2000, while the county population has soared by nearly half a million.

 

The state of Texas ranked twelfth among the 50 states for incidences of crime, according to Morgan Quitno Press, an independent researcher in Lawrence, Kansas, which publishes the rankings annually.