Startling map reveals heartland US counties at risk of going EXTINCT within years… and state that’s worst affected

America is headed toward a population crisis.  

Experts have been warning of this for years, as a ‘perfect storm’ of plummeting births and steady deaths in an increasingly aging population drive the trend. Fatalities are expected to outpace births nationwide by 2030.

Overall, America’s population grew by just 0.5 percent in 2025, one of the lowest rates on record. It was only lower during the COVID pandemic, with a 0.1 percent growth rate in 2021.

Separate provisional data released this week showed that the US fertility rate has dropped to another record low. Data published in 2025 showed women on average had 1.6 births each in 2023, well below the 2.1 needed to sustain population growth.

In 2025, the US recorded 53.1 births for every 1,000 women of childbearing age, down from the previous year’s record-low of 53.8 per 1,000. In 2000, the rate was 67.5.

Analyzing data that was released last year, economists previously warned that America’s natural-born population could edge toward extinction in just 500 years.

However, for some US counties, depopulation is a much more imminent risk than that.  

Daily Mail analysis of US Census Bureau data has revealed five counties that are at risk of ‘going extinct’ in the next 25 years, with their populations forecast to fall to zero inhabitants. An additional 44 counties may be deserted within the next 50 years if America’s fertility crisis continues to deepen.

A cafe is seen above in Mentone, Texas, the county seat of Loving County, Texas, which is set to ‘go extinct’ by 2050

Shown above is main street in Post, a town in Garza County, Texas, which is set to ‘go extinct’ by 2043

While these counties are facing the same challenges as the country at large, they are also contending with people moving to urban areas for higher-paid work and a drop in the number of international migrants entering the country, experts told the Daily Mail. 

These counties are largely rural and, besides one, already have a population of less than 10,000 residents. Four out of five of the worst hit are in Texas.

Overall, 41 percent of US counties saw their populations fall throughout 2025, estimates showed. In 65 percent of counties, deaths outpaced births.

To work out which of America’s 3,144 counties could ‘go extinct,’ the Daily Mail analyzed population trends over time.

First, we calculated the average population loss over a five-year period for each county, based on the latest US census data.

We then projected that decline forward, dividing each county’s current population by its average rate of decline to estimate how many years it could take for the area’s population to fall to zero.

This allowed us to identify which counties are on track to disappear by 2050, and which could be wiped out within the next 50 years. 

Dr Nicole Kreisberg, a population expert at Penn State University, told the Daily Mail that the method ‘seemed reasonable’ as an approach to identify areas at risk of long-term decline.

Dr William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, said the past five years have been unusually volatile due to the COVID pandemic and then a surge in migration to the US, which may have affected the results.

He also noted that small counties can record sharp swings from year to year.

Dr Kenneth Johnson, a senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire, added that no US county is known to have ever reached a population of zero, though there are individual towns that have had no inhabitants.

Based on the analysis, King County, Texas, is set to be the first in the nation to go extinct, with its population of 192 residents estimated to hit zero by 2038.

Garza County, Texas, is estimated to be second, with its population of 4,510 set to hit zero by 2042, followed by Sharkey County, Mississippi, which may lose all of its 3,097 inhabitants by 2048 if recent population trends continue.

Rounding out the top five most at-risk were two other counties in Texas, Reeves County and Loving County, which, based on this measure, are both on pace to be deserted by 2049.

The above image is of an abandoned building in King County, Texas, which could reach a population of zero by 2038 based on a Daily Mail analysis

Shown above is Loving County, Texas, which is America’s least populated county and home to just 52 residents

It wasn’t clear what could be driving the trend, but experts said many of the more rural counties in Texas have seen residents move to cities – which are growing in the state – in search of work and new opportunities.

The center of Mississippi’s Sharkey County, Rolling Fork, was ripped through by a tornado in 2023, which caused millions of dollars in damage and has since led many to move away from the area.

Frey added that Texas was showing up regularly in the data because it had 254 counties – some of the rural ones being very small. He compared it to other states like Arizona, which has just 15 counties.

‘Texas has 200-odd counties, and a lot are pretty small and rural, and those are the ones that decline,’ he told the Daily Mail. ‘Small populations, and more people, maybe, moving to urban areas. 

‘But, if you look at other states, like Arizona, their counties are huge, whereas in Texas, they are tiny except for those in the big cities.’ 

The 1,000-inmate prison in Garza County, Texas, closed in 2024. This removed both residents – the US Census Bureau counts inmates as part of the population of a county – and jobs from the area. 

Loving County, which is America’s least populated with 52 residents, has very limited resources. Its main town, Mentone, has no grocery store or school, but thousands of oil workers still commute through the area every day.

Despite the trends, Kreisberg said she doubted any county would actually reach a population of zero. 

She said it was likely local institutions would step in to try to recruit more residents to plug the gap. She pointed to Italy as an example, where small towns have offered financial incentives to bring in new residents.

Of the 44 counties that could have no inhabitants by 2075, 13 were in Texas while 11 were in Mississippi.

Louisiana, Arkansas and Georgia all had three counties each on the list, while California, Illinois and Alaska had two counties each. Missouri, Colorado, Alabama, North Carolina, West Virginia, Tennessee, Oklahoma and North Dakota all had one county on the list.

Many of the counties affected in Mississippi were in the Mississippi Delta region, which has seen many residents depart in recent years amid a shift away from labor-intensive agriculture.

At the same time, weather events such as warmer temperatures, hurricanes and tornadoes may also have led residents to move to new areas.

Political leaders are warning of dire consequences if the population decline continues. 

The White House proposed offering a $5,000 ‘baby bonus’ to every US mother after she gives birth and President Donald Trump has worked to make in vitro fertilization more affordable, rendering it more accessible to people who want children. 

Elon Musk – who has 14 children with four different women – called the decline ‘the biggest threat to civilization’ and has warned it ‘will lead to mass extinction of entire nations.’

Vice President JD Vance has also claimed that ‘our people aren’t having enough children to replace themselves,’ adding that it ‘should bother us.’