Cass County area

Population and density of Cass County

The Census Bureau estimates that 31,430 people lived in Cass County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,447 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #34 of 87 in Minnesota. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 30,077, the population has grown by 1,353 (+4.5%), compared with +2.2% for Minnesota as a whole.

With 2,021.5 square miles of land, that is 16 people per square mile (6 per km²), placing Cass County #2,456 nationally for density and #63 in Minnesota. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Minnesota median is 27. Put another way, there are about 41 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 Cass County

Cass County is divided into 69 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 Sylvan township, with 3,030 residents (9.6% of the county). The largest by land is North Cass UT, at 206.9 mi², or 10.2% of the county’s land. The county seat, Walker city, has 976 residents. Among those with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Lake Shore city grew fastest since then (+6%).

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

Metropolitan area

Cass County is an outlying county of the Brainerd, MN Micropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 100,562 residents on 3,019.9 square miles of land; Cass County accounts for 66.9% of the land and 31.3% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #51 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #35 by population.

ZIP codes

24 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Cass County; 13 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

557855640156433564355644856452564615646456466564685647256473564745647756479564815648456626566335663656641566555666256672

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 Cass County

Cass County shares a land border with 8 county equivalents. It has more land than 6 of them. The largest neighbor is Itasca County (2,667.5 mi²) and the smallest is Wadena County (536.3 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Cass County forms a block of 13,546 mi² of land, of which it holds 14.9%.

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

Cass County has more land than 2 of the 50 states. It is about 1 times the land area of Delaware (1,948.6 mi²), while Connecticut, the next larger state, has 2.4 times as much land (4,842.5 mi²). Minnesota’s county land could hold about 39 areas the size of Cass County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 45 miles (72.4 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 Cass County?

Cass County has more land than 2,940 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 Cass County at #244 nationally by total area, 38 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 16.3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 15.1 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 Cass 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.