Clinton County area

Population and density of Clinton County

The Census Bureau estimates that 80,432 people lived in Clinton County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #737 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #25 of 83 in Michigan. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 79,130, the population has grown by 1,302 (+1.6%), compared with +0.5% for Michigan as a whole.

With 567.3 square miles of land, that is 142 people per square mile (55 per km²), placing Clinton County #803 nationally for density and #23 in Michigan. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Michigan median is 62. Put another way, there are about 4.5 acres of land per resident.

U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 population estimates. Estimates are revised each year and are not decennial census counts. Density divides the whole population by the whole county’s land area, so it describes an average, not how settlement is distributed within the county. Population sources and methods.

Cities and towns in Clinton County

Clinton County is divided into 22 municipalities and townships. In Michigan, county subdivisions are local governments, and together they cover all of the county’s land and residents.

The most populous is DeWitt charter township, with 15,516 residents (19.3% of the county). The largest by land is Bengal township, at 36.5 mi², or 6.4% of the county’s land. The county seat, St. Johns city, has 7,780 residents. Among those with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Watertown charter township grew fastest since then (+5.9%).

Population: U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2025 subcounty estimates, counting only the part of each subdivision inside Clinton County. Land: 2026 Census Gazetteer. How communities are listed.

Metropolitan area

Clinton County is a central county of the Lansing-East Lansing, MI Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 3 county equivalents have 479,722 residents on 1,698.6 square miles of land; Clinton County accounts for 33.4% of the land and 16.8% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #189 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #116 by population. It belongs to the Lansing-East Lansing-Owosso, MI Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

17 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Clinton County; 9 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

4880848820488224882348831488354883748840488454884848853488664887348875488794889448906

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are the Census Bureau’s approximations of USPS ZIP Code service areas, from the 2020 Census relationship files. Lighter codes have less than half of their land in this county. Post-office-box and single-address ZIP Codes have no tabulation area.

Counties bordering Clinton County

Clinton County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. It has more land than 2 of them. The largest neighbor is Eaton County (575.2 mi²) and the smallest is Shiawassee County (531.1 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Clinton County forms a block of 3,369.5 mi² of land, of which it holds 16.8%.

How big is Clinton County compared with U.S. states?

Clinton County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.8 times as much. Michigan’s county land could hold about 100 areas the size of Clinton County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 23.8 miles (38.3 km) on each side. Real county shapes are rarely square, so this is a scale reference rather than a width or driving distance.

State figures are the sums of each state’s county-equivalent land measurements in the same Census release, so states and counties are compared on the same basis. Published state totals can differ slightly because of rounding. Compare all states · Counties bigger than entire states.

What stands out about Clinton County?

Clinton County has more land than 1,420 of the other 3,221 county equivalents in the dataset.

A median is the middle county-equivalent measurement, not the average of the largest and smallest. All three bars use the same linear scale. Very small areas may appear as a thin sliver; the labels retain their values.

Does including water change its rank?

Using land plus water places Clinton County at #1,886 nationally by total area, 84 places farther from the top than its land rank. Other county equivalents gain more area when their water measurements are included.

Its water share is 1.3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2%. The two percentages are within 0.1 percentage points of each other. This describes the statistical geography’s land/water mix, not flood exposure or developable land.

Closest positions in the national land ranking

These entries sit immediately beside Clinton County in the national ranking. They can be in different states and are not necessarily geographic neighbors.

Calculated from the same Census release as the area table. Total-area order uses original ALAND + AWATER; water shares and chart labels use published square miles. Calculation details.