THE HENNEPIN COUNTY LAND BRIEF
Land in the
Big Woods setting.
Hennepin County has 554 square miles of land in Minnesota. 3 mapped landscape regions meet across Hennepin County: Big Woods, St. Croix Stagnation Moraines, Anoka Sand Plain and Mississippi Valley Outwash.
This transition between northern forests and southern farming country includes lakes, wetlands and hardwood woodland. Glacial landforms support a mosaic of open land and wooded areas.
Regional context: North Central Hardwood Forests ↗ · Regional mapping across the county footprint
Where the landscape changes
Hennepin County intersects 3 mapped regional units. The largest mapped shares are:
- Big Woods69.2%
- St. Croix Stagnation Moraines21.8%
- Anoka Sand Plain and Mississippi Valley Outwash9.1%
Finding your parcel within Hennepin County
The atlas lists 45 cities, towns, townships, and Census communities associated with Hennepin County, including Minneapolis, Corcoran, Bloomington. The list includes overlapping geography types and does not divide the county into exclusive service areas.
Hennepin County by land and water
The Census records 52.7 square miles of water within Hennepin County, or 8.7% of its total area. That share is close to Hennepin County’s 8.7%. This is geographic context; waterfront status and usable land must be checked at the parcel.
For scale, Hennepin County has 16.9 times the land area of nearby Plymouth city (32.7 square miles). These areas describe boundaries, not comparable property prices.
The Census boundary meets Anoka County, Carver County, Dakota County, Ramsey County, Scott County, Sherburne County, Wright County within Minnesota. A tract near one of these lines should be matched to the county identifier on its own records.

