simplemaplab

Illinois Counties

Complete list of all 102 counties in Illinois with population, area, median income, and county seats — plus a free printable blank map.

Counties
102
Population
12,694,745
Area
55,519 sq mi
Capital
Springfield
Time Zone
Central (CT)
Labeled map of Illinois counties

Labeled outline map of Illinois counties. Download a printable version in SVG, PNG, or PDF.

All 102 Illinois counties

County County Seat Population Area Median Income Cities
Cook5,192,497945 mi²$87,55897
DuPage997,889328 mi²$117,60332
Lake701,818444 mi²$117,39529
Will697,966837 mi²$114,89023
Kane455,417520 mi²$109,42122
McHenry328,030603 mi²$106,08117
Winnebago285,063513 mi²$68,57512
Madison268,375716 mi²$79,64327
St. Clair247,743658 mi²$76,23520
Champaign208,555996 mi²$66,66026
Sangamon194,839868 mi²$80,35420
Peoria179,934619 mi²$72,44217
McLean171,8781,183 mi²$80,39123
Rock Island143,264428 mi²$69,41517
Kendall137,344320 mi²$107,5968

How many counties does Illinois have?

Illinois has 102 counties covering 55,519 square miles and roughly 12,694,745 residents. The state was admitted to the Union in 1818 as the 21st state, and the current county boundaries reflect more than a century of administrative subdivision.

The largest county by land area is McLean County at 1,183 square miles, home to about 171,878 residents. The most populous is Cook County with approximately 5,192,497 residents — a density of about 5,495 people per square mile.

At the other end of the scale, Hardin County has only about 3,183 residents.

Illinois’s capital is Springfield, while the largest city is Chicago — a common pattern in the United States, where many states placed their capitals in smaller, more central towns rather than their largest commercial hubs.

Related resources

Download a printable outline of Illinois’s county boundaries from our blank map of Illinois page — available in SVG, PNG, and PDF.

Use the What County Am I In? tool to detect which Illinois county a GPS location or address falls in, or the Address to County Lookup for batch input.

For demographic radius analysis, the Find ZIP Codes in Radius and Population Within Radius tools let you draw a circle around any Illinois address and see every ZIP code and the total population inside.

Two SimpleMapLab studies cover Illinois specifically: the 100-mile radius around Springfield measures how much of the state lives within 100 miles of its capitol, and the loneliest town in Illinois ranks the state’s most isolated inhabited place. The county-counts blog post puts Illinois’s 102 counties in national context.

Frequently asked questions

Illinois has 102 counties. The state was admitted to the Union in 1818 as the 21st state. County boundaries have shifted over time as the population spread and new administrative units were carved from existing ones.
McLean County is the largest by land area at 1,183 square miles, with about 171,878 residents.
Cook County is the most populous, with approximately 5,192,497 residents over 945 square miles.
Hardin County has the smallest population at about 3,183 residents.
Springfield is the state capital. The largest city is Chicago — a common pattern in the US, where many states placed their capitals in smaller, more central towns rather than their largest commercial hubs.
Population, area, and demographic figures are aggregated from ZIP-code-level US Census data (via the SimpleMaps dataset) and the US Census Gazetteer. County boundaries used to render the map are from the US Atlas TopoJSON build of the Census Bureau's TIGER/Line shapefiles. The data is public domain.
Data sources

Population and demographics are aggregated from ZIP-code-level US Census data via the SimpleMaps dataset. Countiesboundaries are from the US Atlas TopoJSON build of the Census Bureau’s TIGER/Line shapefiles. Land area is from the Census Gazetteer. State counts follow the US Census Bureau’s definition of counties and county-equivalents (50 states + DC = 3,143). All sources are public domain.

Neighboring states