Minnesota county map

How Minnesota’s counties are laid out

Minnesota’s 87 counties cover 86,936 square miles, an average of about 1,000 square miles each, but the range is enormous. The southern and western counties were surveyed on the township grid and are mostly neat rectangles of 400 to 700 square miles; the northern counties, carved out of forest and bog after the lumber and iron booms, are several times larger. St. Louis County alone is larger than Connecticut and Rhode Island together.

The first nine counties were created in 1849 when Minnesota Territory was organised, and the southern half of the state was subdivided within a decade of statehood in 1858. County names come from the Dakota and Ojibwe languages (Anoka, Chisago, Isanti, Kanabec, Kandiyohi, Mahnomen, Wabasha, Waseca, Winona), from French traders (Le Sueur, Mille Lacs, Lac qui Parle, Roseau, Traverse), and from politicians — Ramsey, Sibley, Rice, Steele, Olmsted, Stearns and Wright. Hennepin honours the Franciscan priest who saw the Falls of St. Anthony in 1680.

Minneapolis is the seat of Hennepin County and Saint Paul the seat of Ramsey County; the two lie on opposite banks of the Mississippi, and the seven-county metro area (Hennepin, Ramsey, Dakota, Anoka, Washington, Scott and Carver) holds over half of the state’s population. Minnesota has no independent cities.

All 87 counties of Minnesota

Five county facts

• Largest by area: St. Louis County, seat Duluth, about 6,200 square miles of land stretching from Lake Superior to the Canadian border. It contains the Mesabi Iron Range towns of Hibbing, Virginia and Eveleth and part of the Boundary Waters. It is the largest county east of the Mississippi.
• Smallest by area: Ramsey County, seat Saint Paul, at about 150 square miles of land — yet it is the second most populous county in the state, with about 550,000 people, and by far the most densely settled.
• Most populous: Hennepin County, seat Minneapolis, with about 1.28 million people in 2020, more than a fifth of all Minnesotans. Dakota County (Hastings) and Anoka County (Anoka) are third and fourth.
• Least populous: Traverse County on the South Dakota line, seat Wheaton, with about 3,400 people. Its neighbours Big Stone, Grant and Stevens counties are also among the smallest. In the north, Lake of the Woods County (Baudette) has under 4,000 residents and includes the Northwest Angle, the only part of the contiguous 48 states north of the 49th parallel.
• Oldest and newest: Washington, Ramsey and Benton were among the nine original counties of 1849. Lake of the Woods County, split from Beltrami in 1922, is the newest. Minnesota has no independent cities.

Reading the map

Press Streets and zoom in. The Mississippi River enters the county map at Lake Itasca in Clearwater County, loops north through Beltrami and Itasca counties, then runs south past St. Cloud, Minneapolis and Saint Paul before forming the Wisconsin border from Washington County to Houston County in the south-east corner. The Minnesota River cuts a diagonal from Big Stone Lake through Lac qui Parle, Chippewa, Renville, Nicollet and Blue Earth counties to join the Mississippi at Fort Snelling. The Red River of the North forms the entire western border with North Dakota through Wilkin, Clay, Norman, Polk, Marshall and Kittson counties. Cook, Lake and St. Louis counties make up the “Arrowhead” on Lake Superior. The whole state keeps Central Time.

Related maps

• Minnesota map — cities, borders and lakes.
• Blank Minnesota map and printable Minnesota map.
• Saint Paul, the state capital, in Ramsey County.
• Neighbouring county maps: Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota.
• West North Central states · the Midwest · Central Time Zone.
• Geography: Mississippi River, Great Lakes, US lakes.
• All US county maps.