What Is Kendall County Texas?

Kendall County comes up constantly in conversations about the Texas Hill Country real estate market — but not everyone knows exactly what it is, where it is, and why it keeps showing up on best-places-to-live lists. Here is the complete picture.

The Basics: Location and Geography

Kendall County is a county in the Texas Hill Country located northwest of San Antonio in the Edwards Plateau region. The county covers approximately 664 square miles of limestone terrain, cedar and live oak woodland, creek-fed valleys, and ranching land. It is bounded to the south by Bexar County (San Antonio), to the east by Comal County (New Braunfels), to the north by Kerr County, and to the west by Bandera and Gillespie Counties. The county seat — and by far the largest city within the county — is Boerne. Kendall County is part of the San Antonio-New Braunfels Metropolitan Statistical Area.

History and Heritage

Kendall County was established in 1862 and named for George Wilkins Kendall, a journalist and sheep rancher who helped establish the Texas wool industry. The county's largest city, Boerne, was founded in 1849 by German settlers associated with the Free Thinkers movement. The county's character was shaped by German-American agricultural heritage — ranching, farming, and the small-town civic culture that German immigrant communities were known for building across the Texas Hill Country. That heritage is still visible in Boerne's historic limestone buildings, the annual Berges Fest celebrating German culture, and the community investment in education and civic life that characterizes the county today.

Population and Growth

Kendall County's population has grown consistently for over a decade, driven primarily by families relocating from San Antonio and out-of-state buyers seeking Hill Country lifestyle with major-metro access. Boerne's population alone grew 39.4% from the 2020 Census to approximately 25,209 in 2026, per World Population Review, at an annual growth rate of approximately 4.83%. Texas ranked fourth in the nation for population growth from July 2024 to July 2025, adding 391,243 new residents per U.S. Census Bureau data, and Kendall County captures a meaningful share of that growth.

What Kendall County Offers Real Estate Buyers

Kendall County's real estate market spans from entry-level homes in Boerne's established communities to multi-million-dollar custom estates in Cordillera Ranch, from smaller lots in master-planned neighborhoods to hundreds of acres of Hill Country ranch land. The county's school district — Boerne ISD — is consistently rated among the best in the San Antonio metro by the Texas Education Agency. The combination of top-rated schools, Hill Country terrain, Guadalupe River access, and I-10 connectivity to San Antonio has produced a market where property values are approximately double the Texas statewide median and have historically maintained strong long-term appreciation support.

Key Communities Within Kendall County

Boerne is the county seat and primary residential market. Fair Oaks Ranch spans both Kendall and Bexar Counties and offers established neighborhoods with larger lots close to the Bexar County line. Comfort is a smaller historic community approximately 25 miles northwest of Boerne with significant German heritage preservation and a growing arts and antiques scene. Sisterdale and the unincorporated rural areas of the county offer ranch land and acreage for buyers seeking privacy and agricultural use.

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