THE CLACKAMAS COUNTY LAND BRIEF
Land in the
Western Cascades Lowlands and Valleys setting.
Clackamas County has 1,870.7 square miles of land in Oregon. 8 mapped landscape regions meet across Clackamas County: Western Cascades Lowlands and Valleys, Western Cascades Montane Highlands, Valley Foothills, among others.
Volcanic mountains, deeply cut stream valleys and glaciated high country define the Cascades. Conifer forests change with elevation, giving way to mountain meadows and rocky alpine terrain.
Regional context: Cascades ↗ · Regional mapping across the county footprint
Where the landscape changes
Clackamas County intersects 8 mapped regional units. The largest mapped shares are:
- Western Cascades Lowlands and Valleys33.6%
- Western Cascades Montane Highlands24.6%
- Valley Foothills15.6%
- Cascade Crest Montane Forest11.7%
- Prairie Terraces11.4%
Willamette Valley in Clackamas County
The Willamette River's floodplains and terraces sit among low hills and scattered buttes. The valley's prairie, oak and riparian landscape differs markedly from the conifer-covered mountains around it.
Read the regional source ↗Finding your parcel within Clackamas County
The atlas lists 27 cities, towns, townships, and Census communities associated with Clackamas County, including Portland, Mount Hood Villages, Beavercreek. The list includes overlapping geography types and does not divide the county into exclusive service areas.
Clackamas County by land and water
The Census records 12.3 square miles of water within Clackamas County, or 0.7% of its total area. That share is close to Clackamas County’s 0.7%. This is geographic context; waterfront status and usable land must be checked at the parcel.
For scale, Clackamas County has 706.5 times the land area of nearby Estacada city (2.65 square miles). These areas describe boundaries, not comparable property prices.
The Census boundary meets Hood River County, Marion County, Multnomah County, Wasco County, Washington County, Yamhill County within Oregon. A tract near one of these lines should be matched to the county identifier on its own records.

