THE CLARKE COUNTY LAND BRIEF
Land in the
Loess Flats and Till Plains setting.
Clarke County has 431.1 square miles of land in Iowa. 2 mapped landscape regions meet across Clarke County: Loess Flats and Till Plains, Rolling Loess Prairies.
Irregular plains form a transition between northern agricultural country and more wooded uplands to the south and east. Grassland and forest historically mixed, with wider woodland belts beside streams.
Regional context: Central Irregular Plains ↗ · Regional mapping across the county footprint
Where the landscape changes
Clarke County intersects 2 mapped regional units. The largest mapped shares are:
- Loess Flats and Till Plains80.3%
- Rolling Loess Prairies19.7%
Western Corn Belt Plains in Clarke County
Glacial till plains and windblown loess hills make up the Western Corn Belt landscape. Near-level and rolling terrain are interspersed with steeper river valleys and hills.
Read the regional source ↗Finding your parcel within Clarke County
The atlas lists 3 cities, towns, townships, and Census communities associated with Clarke County, including Osceola, Murray, Woodburn. The list includes overlapping geography types and does not divide the county into exclusive service areas.
Clarke County by land and water
The Census records 0.59 square miles of water within Clarke County, or 0.1% of its total area. That share is close to Clarke County’s 0.1%. This is geographic context; waterfront status and usable land must be checked at the parcel.
For scale, Clarke County has 54.1 times the land area of nearby Osceola city (7.97 square miles). These areas describe boundaries, not comparable property prices.
The Census boundary meets Decatur County, Lucas County, Madison County, Ringgold County, Union County, Warren County, Wayne County within Iowa. A tract near one of these lines should be matched to the county identifier on its own records.

