THE BOX ELDER COUNTY LAND BRIEF
Land in the
Salt Deserts setting.
Box Elder County has 5,781.3 square miles of land in Utah. 13 mapped landscape regions meet across Box Elder County: Salt Deserts, Sagebrush Basins and Slopes, Shadscale-Dominated Saline Basins, among others.
North-trending mountain blocks separate dry interior basins. Alluvial fans connect the ranges to valley floors, while vegetation changes from sparse basin shrubs to woodland and forest at higher elevations.
Regional context: Central Basin and Range ↗ · Regional mapping across the county footprint
Where the landscape changes
Box Elder County intersects 13 mapped regional units. The largest mapped shares are:
- Salt Deserts33.7%
- Sagebrush Basins and Slopes21.1%
- Shadscale-Dominated Saline Basins19.5%
- Semiarid Hills and Low Mountains6.9%
- Dissected High Lava Plateau6.1%
Northern Basin and Range in Box Elder County
Lava plains, stony uplands, dry valleys and scattered ranges form the Northern Basin and Range. Sagebrush and grassland give way to juniper and other woodland in higher or rockier settings.
Read the regional source ↗Wasatch and Uinta Mountains in Box Elder County
High, steep mountains and narrow valleys form the core of the Wasatch and Uinta ranges. Woodland, aspen and conifers change with elevation, with dissected plateaus along parts of the margins.
Read the regional source ↗Finding your parcel within Box Elder County
The atlas lists 19 cities, towns, townships, and Census communities associated with Box Elder County, including Howell, Brigham City, Thatcher. The list includes overlapping geography types and does not divide the county into exclusive service areas.
Box Elder County by land and water
The Census records 947.9 square miles of water within Box Elder County, or 14.1% of its total area. That share is close to Box Elder County’s 14.1%. This is geographic context; waterfront status and usable land must be checked at the parcel.
For scale, Box Elder County has 3,722.7 times the land area of nearby Snowville town (1.55 square miles). These areas describe boundaries, not comparable property prices.
The Census boundary meets Cache County, Davis County, Tooele County, Weber County within Utah. A tract near one of these lines should be matched to the county identifier on its own records.

