Minnesota Counties
Complete list of all 87 counties in Minnesota with population, area, median income, and county seats — plus a free printable blank map.
Labeled outline map of Minnesota counties. Download a printable version in SVG, PNG, or PDF.
All 88 Minnesota counties
| County | County Seat | Population ▼ | Area | Median Income | Cities |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hennepin | — | 1,279,854 | 554 mi² | $105,541 | 22 |
| Ramsey | — | 542,837 | 152 mi² | $83,636 | 1 |
| Dakota | — | 447,813 | 562 mi² | $109,506 | 13 |
| Anoka | — | 388,243 | 423 mi² | $101,638 | 9 |
| Washington | — | 260,019 | 384 mi² | $121,097 | 13 |
| St. Louis | — | 192,552 | 6,247 mi² | $72,541 | 34 |
| Stearns | — | 167,998 | 1,343 mi² | $79,543 | 25 |
| Olmsted | — | 163,038 | 653 mi² | $98,029 | 7 |
| Scott | — | 144,357 | 356 mi² | $121,747 | 6 |
| Wright | — | 123,632 | 661 mi² | $106,149 | 12 |
| Sherburne | — | 117,766 | 433 mi² | $105,446 | 7 |
| Carver | — | 105,174 | 354 mi² | $126,172 | 12 |
| Blue Earth | — | 70,803 | 748 mi² | $75,480 | 12 |
| Rice | — | 70,256 | 496 mi² | $84,116 | 8 |
| Clay | — | 66,423 | 1,045 mi² | $81,989 | 11 |
How many counties does Minnesota have?
Minnesota has 87 counties covering 79,627 square miles and roughly 5,748,723 residents. The state was admitted to the Union in 1858 as the 32nd state, and the current county boundaries reflect more than a century of administrative subdivision.
The largest county by land area is St. Louis County at 6,247 square miles, home to about 192,552 residents. The most populous is Hennepin County with approximately 1,279,854 residents — a density of about 2,310 people per square mile.
At the other end of the scale, Traverse County has only about 2,599 residents.
Minnesota’s capital is Saint Paul, while the largest city is Minneapolis — 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 Minnesota’s county boundaries from our blank map of Minnesota page — available in SVG, PNG, and PDF.
Use the What County Am I In? tool to detect which Minnesota 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 Minnesota address and see every ZIP code and the total population inside.
Two SimpleMapLab studies cover Minnesota specifically: the 100-mile radius around Saint Paul measures how much of the state lives within 100 miles of its capitol, and the loneliest town in Minnesota ranks the state’s most isolated inhabited place. The county-counts blog post puts Minnesota’s 87 counties in national context.
Frequently asked questions
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.