THE STARK COUNTY LAND BRIEF
Land in the
Illinois/Indiana Prairies setting.
Stark County has 288.1 square miles of land in Illinois. 2 mapped landscape regions meet across Stark County: Illinois/Indiana Prairies, Western Dissected Illinoian Till Plain.
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
Stark County intersects 2 mapped regional units. The largest mapped shares are:
- Illinois/Indiana Prairies99.6%
- Western Dissected Illinoian Till Plain0.4%
Interior River Valleys and Hills in Stark County
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.
Read the regional source ↗Finding your parcel within Stark County
The atlas lists 12 cities, towns, townships, and Census communities associated with Stark County, including West Jersey, Goshen, Valley. The list includes overlapping geography types and does not divide the county into exclusive service areas.
Stark County by land and water
The Census records 0.26 square miles of water within Stark County, or 0.1% of its total area. That share is close to Stark County’s 0.1%. This is geographic context; waterfront status and usable land must be checked at the parcel.
For scale, Stark County has 8.1 times the land area of nearby Toulon township (35.5 square miles). These areas describe boundaries, not comparable property prices.
The Census boundary meets Bureau County, Henry County, Knox County, Marshall County, Peoria County within Illinois. A tract near one of these lines should be matched to the county identifier on its own records.

