North Dakota county map

How North Dakota’s counties are laid out

North Dakota’s 53 counties divide 70,698 square miles almost evenly — most are rough rectangles of 1,000 to 2,000 square miles laid out on the survey grid — but the people are not evenly spread. Cass County on the Red River holds about 185,000 of the state’s 779,094 residents (2020), and with Burleigh (Bismarck), Grand Forks, Ward (Minot), Morton (Mandan), Williams (Williston) and Stark (Dickinson) the seven urban counties account for two-thirds of the state. Twenty-nine counties have fewer than 5,000 people, and most of them have lost population in every census since 1930.

Pembina County, in the north-east corner where the Red River crosses into Manitoba, was created by Dakota Territory in 1867 and is the oldest; the fur post at Pembina dates from 1797. The counties of the Red River Valley and the Northern Pacific route through Fargo, Jamestown, Bismarck and Dickinson were organised in the 1870s and 1880s, and the north-western and south-western counties — Divide, Burke, Renville, Mountrail, Golden Valley, Slope — were the last to be split off, between 1908 and 1915, as the Great Northern and Soo Line railways opened them to homesteaders.

North Dakota is a split time-zone state. Adams, Billings, Bowman, Golden Valley, Hettinger, Slope and Stark counties in the south-west, and parts of Dunn, McKenzie and Sioux counties, are on Mountain Time; the other counties, including Bismarck, Fargo, Grand Forks, Minot and Williston, are on Central Time. The boundary broadly follows the Missouri River and then the Morton–Stark and Grant–Hettinger county lines.

All 53 counties of North Dakota

Five county facts

• Largest by area: McKenzie County, seat Watford City, about 2,760 square miles of land between the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers in the Bakken oil field; it was also the fastest-growing county in the country during the 2010s. McLean, Williams, Ward, Stutsman and Dunn counties are each over 1,900 square miles.
• Smallest by area: Eddy County, seat New Rockford, about 630 square miles in the middle of the state. Griggs, Steele, Foster and Renville counties are also under 900 square miles.
• Most populous: Cass County, seat Fargo, with about 185,000 people in 2020; Burleigh County (Bismarck) is second at about 98,000, Grand Forks County third at about 73,000.
• Least populous: Slope County, seat Amidon, with about 700 people in 1,200 square miles of badlands and ranch land. Amidon itself has about 20 residents and is among the smallest county seats in the US. Billings County (Medora), which contains most of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, has about 900.
• Oldest and newest: Pembina County (1867) is the oldest. Slope County, cut from Billings County in 1915, is the newest. North Dakota has no independent cities or consolidated city-counties.

Reading the map

Press Streets and zoom in on the highlighted state to see county lines. The Red River of the North forms the whole Minnesota border along Richland, Cass, Traill, Grand Forks, Walsh and Pembina counties, and flows north into Canada. The Missouri River enters from Montana through Williams and McKenzie counties, is dammed at Garrison to form Lake Sakakawea between McLean, Mountrail, McKenzie, Dunn and Mercer counties, and then passes Bismarck and Mandan (Burleigh and Morton) before leaving through Emmons and Sioux counties, where the Standing Rock reservation straddles the South Dakota line. Devils Lake, in Ramsey and Benson counties, is the largest natural lake in the state. Rolette County on the Manitoba border contains the Turtle Mountains and the International Peace Garden that gives the state its nickname.

Related maps

• North Dakota map — cities, borders and geography.
• Blank North Dakota map and printable North Dakota map.
• Bismarck, the state capital, in Burleigh County.
• Neighbouring county maps: Minnesota, South Dakota, Montana.
• West North Central division · the Midwest · Great Plains region · Central and Mountain time zones.
• Geography: Missouri River, Great Plains, national parks.
• All US county maps.