THE KANKAKEE COUNTY LAND BRIEF
Land in the
Illinois/Indiana Prairies setting.
Kankakee County has 676.5 square miles of land in Illinois. 4 mapped landscape regions meet across Kankakee County: Illinois/Indiana Prairies, Sand Area, Kankakee Marsh, among others.
Glaciated plains historically supported tallgrass prairie mixed with oak and hickory woodland. Dark prairie soils and broad farming landscapes distinguish much of the Central Corn Belt.
Regional context: Central Corn Belt Plains ↗ · Regional mapping across the county footprint
Where the landscape changes
Kankakee County intersects 4 mapped regional units. The largest mapped shares are:
- Illinois/Indiana Prairies56.4%
- Sand Area40.5%
- Kankakee Marsh1.8%
- Valparaiso-Wheaton Morainal Complex1.3%
Finding your parcel within Kankakee County
The atlas lists 38 cities, towns, townships, and Census communities associated with Kankakee County, including Pembroke, Norton, Pilot. The list includes overlapping geography types and does not divide the county into exclusive service areas.
Kankakee County by land and water
The Census records 4.81 square miles of water within Kankakee County, or 0.7% of its total area. That share is close to Kankakee County’s 0.7%. This is geographic context; waterfront status and usable land must be checked at the parcel.
For scale, Kankakee County has 93 times the land area of nearby Bradley village (7.28 square miles). These areas describe boundaries, not comparable property prices.
The Census boundary meets Ford County, Grundy County, Iroquois County, Livingston County, Will County within Illinois. A tract near one of these lines should be matched to the county identifier on its own records.

