Denton County Texas map
33.21° N · 97.12° W · County seat: Denton · 952 sq mi · Central Time
Denton County is where the two halves of the Metroplex meet: I-35E from Dallas and I-35W from Fort Worth converge at the city of Denton and continue north as a single I-35. Two large reservoirs — Lewisville Lake and Lake Ray Roberts — take up 73 square miles of the county, more open water than any other county in the metro area.
Denton is at the top of the I-35 fork. Lewisville Lake spreads across the middle of the county; Lake Ray Roberts sits on the Cooke and Grayson lines to the north.
Where Denton County is
Like Collin, the county was carved from Fannin County in 1846. It takes its name from John B. Denton, a preacher, lawyer and militia captain killed in an 1841 raid on a Native American camp; he is buried on the courthouse lawn in the city that also carries his name.
The county line runs against Cooke on the north, Grayson on the northeast, Collin on the east, Dallas on the southeast, Tarrant on the south and Wise on the west. The Oklahoma border is about 35 miles north of the county's northern edge. Physically it straddles two landscapes: the eastern Cross Timbers, a north–south belt of post oak, runs down the western side, and the Grand Prairie and Blackland Prairie open out to the east.
The county's southern boundary is also the north edge of Dallas–Fort Worth International Airport, and SH-114 and SH-121 both drop out of Denton County into the airport's north entrances at Grapevine and Roanoke.
Cities and towns
Populations are the 2020 census count for the part of each place inside Denton County. Frisco, Carrollton, Lewisville, Flower Mound, Dallas and Fort Worth all straddle a county line.
| Place | Type | 2020 population |
|---|---|---|
| Denton | City · county seat | 139,874 |
| Lewisville (part) | City | 124,355 |
| Frisco (part) | City | 81,483 |
| Carrollton (part) | City | 81,420 |
| Flower Mound (part) | Town | 75,335 |
| Little Elm | City | 46,468 |
| The Colony | City | 44,534 |
| Dallas (part) | City | 28,536 |
| Corinth | City | 22,694 |
| Fort Worth (part) | City | 16,999 |
| Highland Village | City | 15,895 |
| Trophy Club (part) | Town | 12,999 |
| Roanoke (part) | City | 9,666 |
| Sanger (part) | City | 8,838 |
Roads
- I-35E – enters from Carrollton and runs north past Lewisville, Highland Village and Corinth to the merge at Denton.
- I-35W – enters from Fort Worth through Justin and Northlake and joins I-35E at Denton.
- I-35 – the single trunk north of Denton, through Sanger and Valley View toward Gainesville and Oklahoma.
- US-380 – the east–west route across the county from Decatur through Denton to Aubrey, Little Elm and Prosper.
- US-377 – southwest from Denton toward Roanoke and Fort Worth.
- SH-114 – the southern corridor through Roanoke and Trophy Club to DFW Airport and Irving.
- SH-121 / Sam Rayburn Tollway – southeast from Denton through Lewisville and The Colony into Collin County.
- Dallas North Tollway – runs up the eastern side through Frisco and Little Elm.
The two lakes
Lewisville Lake is the larger and the older. It took its present form in 1954, when the Garza–Little Elm Reservoir was combined with the earlier Lake Dallas behind a single dam on the Elm Fork of the Trinity River. Lewisville, The Colony, Little Elm, Hickory Creek and Highland Village all sit on its shore, and the lake's southern dam feeds the Elm Fork downstream toward Carrollton and Dallas.
Lake Ray Roberts is upstream on the same fork, straddling the Denton, Cooke and Grayson county lines, with state park units at Isle du Bois and Johnson Branch and a greenbelt trail running down the river between the two reservoirs. Together the two lakes are why nearly 8 percent of Denton County is water.
Universities and the speedway
The city of Denton runs on two public universities: the University of North Texas and Texas Woman's University, both within a mile or so of the courthouse square. Their combined enrollment is a large share of the seat's population and gives Denton a downtown music scene unlike anything else in the county.
At the county's southwestern corner, in the far north of the city of Fort Worth, Texas Motor Speedway sits beside I-35W — a 1.5-mile oval that draws NASCAR and IndyCar crowds several times a year and is the largest single venue in Denton County.