Here's a demographic snapshot of the northern most county in the Dallas Metroplex:

• County Seat: McKinney
• Area: 848 sq. miles of land; 38 sq. miles of water
• Towns and Cities: 27
• Population 2010 Census: 791,631
• Estimated Population 2012: 812,226
• Female-to-Male ratio: 51%-49%
• Median age: 35.3
• Under 18 years old: 28%
• Over 65 years of age: 8%
• Number of households: 290,609
• Average number per household: 2.78
• Number of families: 75% of households
• Traditional married couple families: 78% of family households
• Number of adults living alone: 57,663
• Median Household Income: $82,237
• New residents moving in each day (2011): 74
• Density: 957 people/sq. mile
• Paved County Roads: 726 miles
• Average Taxable Home Value: $230,944
• County Tax Rate (2012): $0.24 per $100 assessed value
• Independent School Districts: 21
• Special Districts: 2
• Hospital Districts: None
• County-level Elected Officials: 35
• Registered Voters (2012): 462,102
• Voter Turnout (November 2012): 65.8%

The numbers make Collin County:

• One of the fastest growing counties in Texas and the U.S.
• The 6th most populous county in Texas
• Among counties with more than a half-million people, the highest sustained growth rate since the last Census in 2000, at 63.6%

Industry & Occupation

From 2000 to 2011 there were 104,000 more jobs in the civilian labor force here in Collin County, far outpacing the county's population growth spurt for the same period. The latest estimated unemployment rate for the county (November 2012) came in at 5.2 percent, compared to the state's rate of 5.8 percent and a national rate of 7.4 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor statistics and the Texas Workforce Commission. More current rates are available from the BLS or the TWC. The  U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) for Collin County also shows:

• For the employed population in 2011 (more than 605,000, a.k.a. the 16 and older crowd):
• Education services, healthcare and social assistance industries employed slightly more than 18 percent
• Professional, scientific, and administrative and waste management services industries made up 16 percent
• The most common three occupational groupings were: management, business, science and arts (52 percent), sales and office workers (26 percent), and service jobs (10 percent)
• The only occupations that have experienced a loss of workers were farming, fishing and forestry; all other occupations grew by double-digit percentages since 2000.

Workforce Education

The education level of the county's workforce just about doubles state and U.S. averages for degreed workers:

• 49.3 percent of those 25 and older had a bachelor's degree or higher, far outpacing the state and national figure that hover between 26 and 28 percent.
• More than 9 out of 10 workers 25 and older have at least a high school diploma

Getting to Work

The ACS determined that the average commute to work for a Collin County resident is 28.1 minutes. For those less fortunate with their daily commutes, especially those heading to downtown Dallas at the crack of dawn, voters here passed a $235.6 million bond package in November 2007 to widen and improve our roadways, plus regional transportation funds from the Sam Rayburn Tollway generated another $900 million. For plans far in the future, take a look at Collin County's Outer Loop Project.

Meanwhile, the ACS figures go on to point out that:

• More than eight out of 10 of county residents drive alone to work, which is higher than state or U.S. percentages
• Collin County residents work at home at a much higher rate than the state average
• County residents' mean morning work commute travel time shrunk by a fraction from 2000-2006, but remained a few minutes longer than national or state averages

Paychecks & Such

• County residents' per capita income is 37 percent (or $10,000 per year) higher than the national rate
• Our median family income here is 52 percent (or $34,000 per year) higher than the U.S. median
• The 2011 county median household income was estimated at $82,237
• Less than one percent of county families were estimated to have received public cash assistance in 2011
• Almost nine percent of county families were estimated to fall at or below the 2011 federal poverty level ($10,890 annual income for one individual and $22,350 for a family of four)

Collin County had a 93-percent occupancy rate for the 287,000-plus housing units here:

• Two-thirds of occupied housing are owner-occupied, with 32 percent rented out
• Traditional married-couple families make up 60 percent of the more than 290,000 households
• The median monthly housing cost for an owner with a mortgage is $1,850, $694 for owners without a mortgage, and $998 a month for the median rent
• Two thirds of these homes - more than 166,000 - were built in 1990 or later

For a comparison between these and local figures on home values, please see the Certified Totals from the Collin Central Appraisal District.

Schools

Total school enrollment was estimated at 240,000 in 2011, which breaks down to 27,000 in nursery school and kindergarten, 126,000 in grades 1 through 12, and, 49,000 in college or graduate school. For individual school district enrollments please check our ISD links.

For an outside look at Collin County schools, check out Forbes Magazine's Best and Worst School Districts for the Buck, where Collin County ranked second in the nation. Additionally:

• The county's biggest educational growth spurt from 2000-2006 came from college (undergraduate and graduate) enrollments, up almost 47 percent
• High-school students grew at the second-fastest rate in this timeframe, at 36.5 percent
• Elementary school students make up the largest single group, at 42 percent of all enrolled students, but their growth rate dropped three percent in the same timeframe

One of the biggest improvements to county public education is coming early in 2010: Collin College’s new Higher Education Center, at Highway 121 (Rayburn Tollway) and U.S. 75 in McKinney. This new facility offers coursework for four-year degrees and graduate programs (both masters and doctoral) to county residents for the first time.

Where You From, Son?

Just in case you were wondering, Native Texans have lost the upper hand, population-wise, in Collin County. We're not sure exactly when that happened (and we're still checking on that) but the survey put people born in the Lone Star State at 45 percent in 2006. But that's not all that's happening to the cultural make-up of the county:

• One in five county residents are foreign born, compared to slightly more than 17 percent in 2006
• About four out of 10 of those foreign born are naturalized U.S. citizens
• A language other than English is spoken in almost one in four homes here, representing almost 150,000 county residents

More and more businesses are setting up shop here, for a lot of great reasons. Take a look at some of these companies, and how many people they’re currently employing in Collin County. And maybe soon we can add you to the list.