THE MISSOULA COUNTY LAND BRIEF
Land in the
Rattlesnake-Blackfoot-South Swan-Northern Garnet-Sapphire Mountains setting.
Missoula County has 2,593 square miles of land in Montana. 12 mapped landscape regions meet across Missoula County: Rattlesnake-Blackfoot-South Swan-Northern Garnet-Sapphire Mountains, Grave Creek Range-Nine Mile Divide, Western Canadian Rockies, among others.
Forested mountain ranges rise above grassy or shrubby intermountain valleys. The Middle Rockies combine alpine high country, partly wooded foothills and valleys supplied by mountain streams.
Regional context: Middle Rockies ↗ · Regional mapping across the county footprint
Where the landscape changes
Missoula County intersects 12 mapped regional units. The largest mapped shares are:
- Rattlesnake-Blackfoot-South Swan-Northern Garnet-Sapphire Mountains38.2%
- Grave Creek Range-Nine Mile Divide25.3%
- Western Canadian Rockies14%
- Bitterroot-Frenchtown Valley9.6%
- Stillwater-Swan Wooded Valley4%
Northern Rockies in Missoula County
The Northern Rockies contain rugged ranges, glacial lakes and mixed conifer forests. Moist Pacific influences reach some inland valleys, producing forest communities unlike the drier mountain regions farther south.
Read the regional source ↗Canadian Rockies in Missoula County
High mountain ranges extend south from Canada into northwestern Montana. Glacial terrain, conifer forests and alpine country are central features, with more ice-covered highlands than the Northern Rockies.
Read the regional source ↗Finding your parcel within Missoula County
The atlas lists 17 cities, towns, townships, and Census communities associated with Missoula County, including Missoula, Condon, Evaro. The list includes overlapping geography types and does not divide the county into exclusive service areas.
Missoula County by land and water
The Census records 24.9 square miles of water within Missoula County, or 1% of its total area. That share is close to Missoula County’s 1%. This is geographic context; waterfront status and usable land must be checked at the parcel.
For scale, Missoula County has 151.2 times the land area of nearby Evaro CDP (17.2 square miles). These areas describe boundaries, not comparable property prices.
The Census boundary meets Flathead County, Granite County, Lake County, Mineral County, Powell County, Ravalli County, Sanders County within Montana. A tract near one of these lines should be matched to the county identifier on its own records.

