THE WINNESHIEK COUNTY LAND BRIEF
Land in the
Blufflands and Coulees setting.
Winneshiek County has 689.8 square miles of land in Iowa. 3 mapped landscape regions meet across Winneshiek County: Blufflands and Coulees, Rochester/Paleozoic Plateau Upland, Eastern Iowa and Minnesota Drift Plains.
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.
Regional context: Driftless Area ↗ · Regional mapping across the county footprint
Where the landscape changes
Winneshiek County intersects 3 mapped regional units. The largest mapped shares are:
- Blufflands and Coulees54%
- Rochester/Paleozoic Plateau Upland24.1%
- Eastern Iowa and Minnesota Drift Plains21.9%
Western Corn Belt Plains in Winneshiek 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 Winneshiek County
The atlas lists 9 cities, towns, townships, and Census communities associated with Winneshiek County, including Decorah, Jackson Junction, Calmar. The list includes overlapping geography types and does not divide the county into exclusive service areas.
Winneshiek County by land and water
The Census records 0.29 square miles of water within Winneshiek County, or 0% of its total area. That share is close to Winneshiek County’s 0%. This is geographic context; waterfront status and usable land must be checked at the parcel.
For scale, Winneshiek County has 95.2 times the land area of nearby Decorah city (7.24 square miles). These areas describe boundaries, not comparable property prices.
The Census boundary meets Allamakee County, Chickasaw County, Clayton County, Fayette County, Howard County within Iowa. A tract near one of these lines should be matched to the county identifier on its own records.

