Rio Grande County

administration
Rio Grande County Courthouse
US state :	Colorado
Administrative headquarters :	Del Norte
Foundation :	1874
Demographics
Residents :	11,982 (2010)
Population density :	5.1 inhabitants / km ²
geography
Total area :	2362 km²
Water surface :	1 km²
map

Website : www.riograndecounty.org

The Rio Grande County is a county in the state of Colorado of the United States with 12,413 inhabitants. The county seat is Del Norte , the largest city is Monte Vista .

The county is mostly mountainous and is part of the San Juan Mountains . It is traversed by the Rio Grande , which leaves the mountains in Del Norte and reaches the intensely agricultural San Luis Valley .

Places on US Highway 160

The US Highway 160 runs along the Rio Grande across the county, almost all places in the county are on it. This route was followed by a railway line built by the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad in the 1880s . These are in the direction of flow of the Rio Grande, i.e. from west to east

Border from neighboring Mineral County
South Fork , a small town in the mountains with 386 inhabitants
Gerrard ( CDP with 99 inhabitants)
directly to the north bordering Alpine (CDP with 124 inhabitants)
Hanna
Del Norte , administrative seat of the county and a city ("Town") with 1,686 inhabitants (2010) .
Evansville
Torres
Sevenmile Plaza
Monte Vista , the largest city and the only "city" in the county, with 4,444 inhabitants
Sugar Junction , a name given to the area around an intersection east of Monte Vista
Zinzer , a name for the area around a road crossing east of Monte Vista
Homelake , a settlement on the lake of the same name east of Monte Vista, a little north of the highway
Parma , a name given to the area on the eastern edge of the county near the municipal airport of Monte Vista
Alamosa County border

Other places

The places Maxeyville , Vastine , Dunul and Ansel are north of Monte Vista. Even further north in the far northeast of the county are parts of the city of Center , but most of it belongs to neighboring Saguache County .

The Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge in the San Luis Valley south of Monte Vista was irrigated and used for agriculture from the 1880s. It has been a bird sanctuary since 1953 and is important, among other things, for the migration of the sandhill crane .

The place Jasper is located in the extreme southern edge of the county in the mountains and can only be reached by road via the neighboring Conejos County to the south . Founded in the late 19th century as a miners' settlement and then abandoned, it was parceled out and sold piece by piece in the 1980s and is now a holiday home settlement with no electricity, normally only inhabited in summer.

Demographic data

growth of population
Census	Residents	± in%
1880	1944	-
1890	3451	77.5%
1900	4080	18.2%
1910	6563	60.9%
1920	7855	19.7%
1930	9953	26.7%
1940	12,404	24.6%
1950	12,832	3.5%
1960	11,160	-13%
1970	10,494	-6%
1980	10,511	0.2%
1990	10,770	2.5%
2000	12,413	15.3%
2010	11,982	-3.5%
Before 1900 1900–1990 2000 2010 Age pyramid of the Rio Grande County (as of 2000)

The Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge

As of the 2000 census , the county had 12,413 people. There were 4,701 households and 3,417 families. The population density was 5 people per square kilometer. The racial the population was composed of 73.93 percent white, 0.35 percent African American, 1.26 percent Native American, 0.23 percent Asian, 0.02 percent of residents from the Pacific island area and 21.45 percent from other ethnic groups Groups; 2.76 percent were descended from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 41.67 percent of the total population.

Of the 4,701 households, 35.1 percent had children and adolescents under the age of 18 living with them. 57.8 percent were married couples living together, 11.2 percent were single mothers. 27.3 percent were not families. 24.1 percent were single households and 10.3 percent had people aged 65 or over. The average household size was 2.59 and the average family size was 3.08.

For the entire county, the population was composed of 28.1 percent of residents under 18 years of age, 8.0 percent between 18 and 24 years of age, 25.3 percent between 25 and 44 years of age, and 23.9 percent between 45 and 64 years of age 14.7 percent were 65 years of age or over. The median age was 37 years. For every 100 females there were 97.1 males, and for every 100 females aged 18 and over there were 94.4 males.

The median income for a household in the 31,836 USD , and the median income for a family was 36,809 USD. Males had a median income of $ 30,432 versus $ 23,005 for females. The per capita income was $ 15,650. 14.5 percent of the population and 11.3 percent of families are below the poverty line. These included 18.4 percent of the population under the age of 18 and 11.2 percent of the population aged 65 and over.