THE MCHENRY COUNTY LAND BRIEF
Land in the
Kettle Moraines setting.
McHenry County has 603.4 square miles of land in Illinois. 4 mapped landscape regions meet across McHenry County: Kettle Moraines, Valparaiso-Wheaton Morainal Complex, Illinois/Indiana Prairies, among others.
Glacial till plains support a transition between hardwood forest, oak savanna and prairie landscapes. Rolling farmland and woodland reflect this meeting of ecological regions in southeastern Wisconsin.
Regional context: Southeastern Wisconsin Till Plains ↗ · Regional mapping across the county footprint
Where the landscape changes
McHenry County intersects 4 mapped regional units. The largest mapped shares are:
- Kettle Moraines48.8%
- Valparaiso-Wheaton Morainal Complex32.1%
- Illinois/Indiana Prairies16.9%
- Rock River Drift Plain2.2%
Central Corn Belt Plains in McHenry County
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.
Read the regional source ↗Finding your parcel within McHenry County
The atlas lists 61 cities, towns, townships, and Census communities associated with McHenry County, including Nunda, Algonquin, McHenry. The list includes overlapping geography types and does not divide the county into exclusive service areas.
McHenry County by land and water
The Census records 7.67 square miles of water within McHenry County, or 1.3% of its total area. That share is close to McHenry County’s 1.3%. This is geographic context; waterfront status and usable land must be checked at the parcel.
For scale, McHenry County has 45.6 times the land area of nearby Woodstock city (13.2 square miles). These areas describe boundaries, not comparable property prices.
The Census boundary meets Boone County, Cook County, DeKalb County, Kane County, Lake County within Illinois. A tract near one of these lines should be matched to the county identifier on its own records.

