Leelanau County area

Population and density of Leelanau County

The Census Bureau estimates that 22,982 people lived in Leelanau County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,733 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #62 of 83 in Michigan. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 22,302, the population has grown by 680 (+3%), compared with +0.5% for Michigan as a whole.

With 347.2 square miles of land, that is 66 people per square mile (26 per km²), placing Leelanau County #1,304 nationally for density and #39 in Michigan. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Michigan median is 62. Put another way, there are about 9.7 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 Leelanau County

Leelanau County is divided into 12 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 Elmwood charter township, with 5,039 residents (21.9% of the county). The largest by land is Leelanau township, at 49.2 mi², or 14.2% of the county’s land. Among those with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Empire township grew fastest since then (+3.5%).

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

Metropolitan area

Leelanau County is an outlying county of the Traverse City, MI Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 4 county equivalents have 156,972 residents on 1,691 square miles of land; Leelanau County accounts for 20.5% of the land and 14.6% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #191 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #284 by population.

ZIP codes

11 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Leelanau County; 10 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

4962149630496364964049653496544966449670496744968249684

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 Leelanau County

Leelanau County shares a land border with 2 county equivalents. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Grand Traverse County (464.3 mi²) and the smallest is Benzie County (319.7 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Leelanau County forms a block of 1,131.2 mi² of land, of which it holds 30.7%.

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

Leelanau County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 3 times as much. Michigan’s county land could hold about 163 areas the size of Leelanau County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 18.6 miles (30 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 Leelanau County?

Leelanau County has more land than 536 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 Leelanau County at #231 nationally by total area, 2,455 places closer to the top than its land rank. The water assigned to this geography moves it ahead of some county equivalents with more land.

Its water share is 86.3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 85.1 percentage points higher. 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 Leelanau 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.