THE ROCK ISLAND COUNTY LAND BRIEF
Land in the
River Hills setting.
Rock Island County has 427.5 square miles of land in Illinois. 4 mapped landscape regions meet across Rock Island County: River Hills, Upper Mississippi Alluvial Plain, Western Dissected Illinoian Till Plain, among others.
Broad terraced river valleys contrast with wooded slopes and dissected glacial plains. Bottomland settings and upland oak landscapes occur close together across the Interior River Valleys and Hills.
Regional context: Interior River Valleys and Hills ↗ · Regional mapping across the county footprint
Where the landscape changes
Rock Island County intersects 4 mapped regional units. The largest mapped shares are:
- River Hills40%
- Upper Mississippi Alluvial Plain30.8%
- Western Dissected Illinoian Till Plain27.1%
- Illinois/Indiana Prairies2%
Central Corn Belt Plains in Rock Island 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 Rock Island County
The atlas lists 42 cities, towns, townships, and Census communities associated with Rock Island County, including Drury, Buffalo Prairie, Bowling. The list includes overlapping geography types and does not divide the county into exclusive service areas.
Rock Island County by land and water
The Census records 23.8 square miles of water within Rock Island County, or 5.3% of its total area. That share is close to Rock Island County’s 5.3%. This is geographic context; waterfront status and usable land must be checked at the parcel.
For scale, Rock Island County has 24.4 times the land area of nearby Rock Island city (17.5 square miles). These areas describe boundaries, not comparable property prices.
The Census boundary meets Henry County, Mercer County, Whiteside County within Illinois. A tract near one of these lines should be matched to the county identifier on its own records.