THE LEE COUNTY LAND BRIEF
Land in the
Loess Flats and Till Plains setting.
Lee County has 517.6 square miles of land in Iowa. 2 mapped landscape regions meet across Lee County: Loess Flats and Till Plains, Upper Mississippi Alluvial Plain.
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
Lee County intersects 2 mapped regional units. The largest mapped shares are:
- Loess Flats and Till Plains84.2%
- Upper Mississippi Alluvial Plain15.8%
Interior River Valleys and Hills in Lee 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 Lee County
The atlas lists 13 cities, towns, townships, and Census communities associated with Lee County, including Fort Madison, Keokuk, Mooar. The list includes overlapping geography types and does not divide the county into exclusive service areas.
Lee County by land and water
The Census records 21.3 square miles of water within Lee County, or 4% of its total area. That share is close to Lee County’s 4%. This is geographic context; waterfront status and usable land must be checked at the parcel.
For scale, Lee County has 3,317.6 times the land area of nearby Franklin city (0.16 square miles). These areas describe boundaries, not comparable property prices.
The Census boundary meets Des Moines County, Henry County, Van Buren County within Iowa. A tract near one of these lines should be matched to the county identifier on its own records.

