THE JACKSON COUNTY LAND BRIEF
Land in the
Rolling Loess Prairies setting.
Jackson County has 636 square miles of land in Iowa. 2 mapped landscape regions meet across Jackson County: Rolling Loess Prairies, Blufflands and Coulees.
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.
Regional context: Western Corn Belt Plains ↗ · Regional mapping across the county footprint
Where the landscape changes
Jackson County intersects 2 mapped regional units. The largest mapped shares are:
- Rolling Loess Prairies72.7%
- Blufflands and Coulees27.3%
Driftless Area in Jackson County
Deeply cut valleys divide a bedrock plateau with windblown soil on many uplands. Glaciers had less influence here than in neighboring regions, leaving a distinctly hilly landscape.
Read the regional source ↗Finding your parcel within Jackson County
The atlas lists 13 cities, towns, townships, and Census communities associated with Jackson County, including Maquoketa, Bellevue, Miles. The list includes overlapping geography types and does not divide the county into exclusive service areas.
Jackson County by land and water
The Census records 13.6 square miles of water within Jackson County, or 2.1% of its total area. That share is close to Jackson County’s 2.1%. This is geographic context; waterfront status and usable land must be checked at the parcel.
For scale, Jackson County has 2,564.7 times the land area of nearby Andrew city (0.25 square miles). These areas describe boundaries, not comparable property prices.
The Census boundary meets Clinton County, Dubuque County, Jones County within Iowa. A tract near one of these lines should be matched to the county identifier on its own records.

