Carver County area

Population and density of Carver County

The Census Bureau estimates that 114,379 people lived in Carver County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #569 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #11 of 87 in Minnesota. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 106,919, the population has grown by 7,460 (+7%), compared with +2.2% for Minnesota as a whole.

With 353.9 square miles of land, that is 323 people per square mile (125 per km²), placing Carver County #484 nationally for density and #7 in Minnesota. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Minnesota median is 27. Put another way, there are about 2 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 Carver County

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

The most populous is Chaska city, with 30,513 residents (26.7% of the county). The largest by land is Hollywood township, at 35.6 mi², or 10.1% of the county’s land. Among those with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Carver city grew fastest since then (+35%).

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

Metropolitan area

Carver County is a central county of the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 15 county equivalents have 3,790,295 residents on 7,047.6 square miles of land; Carver County accounts for 5% of the land and 3% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #26 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #16 by population. It belongs to the Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

18 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Carver County; 12 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

553155531755318553225532855331553395536055363553675536855375553865538755388553955539756011

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 Carver County

Carver County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. Each of them has more land than Carver County. The largest neighbor is Wright County (661.2 mi²) and the smallest is Scott County (356.1 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Carver County forms a block of 3,005.6 mi² of land, of which it holds 11.8%.

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

Carver County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.9 times as much. Minnesota’s county land could hold about 225 areas the size of Carver County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 18.8 miles (30.3 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 Carver County?

Carver County has more land than 547 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 Carver County at #2,673 nationally by total area, 2 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 5.9%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 4.7 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 Carver 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.