THE SHELBY COUNTY LAND BRIEF
Land in the
Loess Plains setting.
Shelby County has 752.8 square miles of land in Tennessee. 3 mapped landscape regions meet across Shelby County: Loess Plains, Northern Holocene Meander Belts, Bluff Hills.
Windblown loess blankets irregular plains and rolling hills, with steeper bluffs near the Mississippi River. Flatter eastern areas contrast with the more deeply cut bluff country.
Regional context: Mississippi Valley Loess Plains ↗ · Regional mapping across the county footprint
Where the landscape changes
Shelby County intersects 3 mapped regional units. The largest mapped shares are:
- Loess Plains80.5%
- Northern Holocene Meander Belts13.9%
- Bluff Hills5.6%
Mississippi Alluvial Plain in Shelby County
The Mississippi's broad alluvial plain includes river terraces, swales and natural levees. Small changes in elevation distinguish local settings within this generally flat river landscape.
Read the regional source ↗Finding your parcel within Shelby County
The atlas lists 7 cities, towns, townships, and Census communities associated with Shelby County, including Memphis, Collierville, Bartlett. The list includes overlapping geography types and does not divide the county into exclusive service areas.
Shelby County by land and water
The Census records 28.8 square miles of water within Shelby County, or 3.7% of its total area. That share is close to Shelby County’s 3.7%. This is geographic context; waterfront status and usable land must be checked at the parcel.
For scale, Shelby County has 23.1 times the land area of nearby Bartlett city (32.6 square miles). These areas describe boundaries, not comparable property prices.
The Census boundary meets Fayette County, Tipton County within Tennessee. A tract near one of these lines should be matched to the county identifier on its own records.

