The Most Oil-Dependent Counties in America — Mapped
Ranked by the share of county GDP in oil and gas extraction (NAICS 21) in 2023. Counties must clear a $500.0M total-GDP floor to reduce small-base distortion — a county with a tiny economy and one active well can otherwise look "100% oil." Real GDP CAGR, 2019–2024, is shown alongside as a growth-trend field; it never affects the ranking.
Top 25 by oil GDP share, 2023
Share of total county GDP in oil and gas extraction (NAICS 21). Tap a county for its full place page.
Where oil-dependent counties are
Every state shaded by how many of the top 25 it contains.
Oil share vs. real GDP growth
A high oil-GDP share doesn't always mean a growing economy — several top counties shrank in real terms.
Bubble area proportional to total county GDP. Source: BEA CAGDP1/CAGDP2. Ranking by Economic Atlas.
The ranking
Oil GDP share drives the rank. Real GDP CAGR is a growth-trend field only — negative rows are the boom-bust story, not excluded or hidden.
| Rank | County | Oil GDP share, 2023 | Oil GDP (NAICS 21) | Total GDP | Real GDP CAGR 2019–2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Loving, TX US-48301 | 99.2% | $10.6B | $10.7B | 12.8% |
| 2 | Martin, TX US-48317 | 97.5% | $14.3B | $14.7B | 19.1% |
| 3 | McMullen, TX US-48311 | 97.0% | $2.0B | $2.0B | 5.3% |
| 4 | Glasscock, TX US-48173 | 94.3% | $4.4B | $4.7B | 11.8% |
| 5 | Reagan, TX US-48383 | 94.0% | $3.9B | $4.2B | 9.4% |
| 6 | La Salle, TX US-48283 | 93.5% | $3.8B | $4.1B | 0.1% |
| 7 | Reeves, TX US-48389 | 92.9% | $13.6B | $14.7B | 2.7% |
| 8 | Culberson, TX US-48109 | 91.1% | $3.4B | $3.8B | 9.6% |
| 9 | Karnes, TX US-48255 | 90.1% | $6.8B | $7.6B | -0.1% |
| 10 | Ward, TX US-48475 | 86.5% | $4.3B | $5.0B | 6.5% |
| 11 | Irion, TX US-48235 | 86.3% | $975.9M | $1.1B | -0.1% |
| 12 | Dimmit, TX US-48127 | 85.0% | $3.4B | $4.0B | -1.2% |
| 13 | Dunn, ND US-38025 | 83.8% | $1.7B | $2.0B | 5.8% |
| 14 | Winkler, TX US-48495 | 83.3% | $1.8B | $2.1B | 4.7% |
| 15 | Howard, TX US-48227 | 79.6% | $9.4B | $11.8B | 9.6% |
| 16 | North Slope Borough, AK US-02185 | 79.5% | $6.3B | $7.9B | 4.1% |
| 17 | Tyler, WV US-54095 | 79.0% | $1.3B | $1.7B | 9.4% |
| 18 | Crane, TX US-48103 | 78.6% | $916.9M | $1.2B | 12.9% |
| 19 | Blaine, OK US-40011 | 77.9% | $1.5B | $1.9B | -3.8% |
| 20 | Andrews, TX US-48003 | 77.8% | $4.0B | $5.2B | 10.2% |
| 21 | Yoakum, TX US-48501 | 76.7% | $2.0B | $2.6B | 3.4% |
| 22 | San Augustine, TX US-48405 | 73.6% | $749.5M | $1.0B | -0.7% |
| 23 | DeWitt, TX US-48123 | 73.2% | $3.2B | $4.4B | -0.1% |
| 24 | Pecos, TX US-48371 | 70.8% | $2.1B | $3.0B | -0.5% |
| 25 | Borden, TX US-48033 | 69.3% | $653.2M | $943.2M | 19.6% |
How this was computed
- Take every U.S. county with a nominal all-industries GDP value (BEA CAGDP2) for 2023, and its matching NAICS-21 (Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction) nominal GDP for the same year — 3,127 counties.
- Require total county GDP at least $500.0M in 2023, the same small-base guard used on the fastest-growing-counties report — 2,380 counties clear it.
- Compute oil GDP share = NAICS-21 GDP ÷ total GDP, full floating-point precision. Rank descending; ties broken by larger total GDP, then ascending FIPS.
- Join each ranked county's real (chained-dollar) all-industries GDP CAGR, 2019–2024 — a growth-trend field shown for context, never part of the ranking. Missing at either endpoint renders as a data gap, not a fabricated 0%.
- Publish the top 25. The same 2023 share is separately rolled up to the state level (no eligibility floor) for the map.
Coverage and limitations
2,380 of 3,127 source counties met the $500.0M floor; 747 were excluded for total GDP below it. 21 of the top 25 are in Texas; the rest are in ND, AK, WV, OK.
7 of the top 25 counties shown here had NEGATIVE real GDP growth from 2019 to 2024, despite topping the oil-dependence ranking — a high share of one industry does not guarantee that industry, or the county, is growing. Oil and gas extraction GDP is capital- and price-intensive: a county's share can swing sharply with commodity prices and drilling activity from one BEA vintage to the next.
NAICS 21 (Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction) also includes non-petroleum mining in a small number of counties; this report does not separate oil and gas from other extractive activity within the sector, and neither does BEA's published NAICS-21 aggregate.
Oil GDP share measures production concentration, not resident income, employment, or fiscal dependence on oil-and-gas tax revenue — those are different measures this report does not compute.
Frequently asked questions
Loving, TX — 99.2% of its $10.7B county GDP came from oil and gas extraction (NAICS 21) in 2023.
21 of the top 25 counties by oil-GDP share are in Texas; the rest are in ND, AK, WV, OK. Texas has by far the largest number of counties clearing the $500.0M eligibility floor with a meaningful oil and gas sector.
The share of a county's total nominal GDP that comes from NAICS sector 21 — Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction — in 2023, among counties with at least $500.0M in total GDP. It is a production-concentration measure, not an employment or tax-revenue measure.
No. 7 of the top 25 counties on this list had negative real GDP growth from 2019 to 2024 even while ranking among the most oil-dependent — commodity-price and drilling-activity swings can shrink a highly concentrated county economy year to year.
Wyoming, where oil and gas extraction made up 16.8% of total state GDP in 2023 — the highest share of any state, ahead of North Dakota, Alaska, and West Virginia.
Related: Fastest-growing U.S. county economies — a different lens: ranked by real GDP growth rate rather than industry concentration. None of the counties above appear in that top 25 — oil-dependent counties tend to be small and single-industry, while the fastest growers are typically larger, diversifying metros. Also see Utilities and the AI Power Crunch — the same NAICS-share-of-county-GDP lens applied to power-plant counties (NAICS 22) instead of oil and gas.