Lake of the Woods County area

Population and density of Lake of the Woods County

The Census Bureau estimates that 3,770 people lived in Lake of the Woods County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,975 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #86 of 87 in Minnesota. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 3,772, the population has declined by 2 (−0.1%), compared with +2.2% for Minnesota as a whole.

With 1,297.7 square miles of land, that is 2.9 people per square mile (1.1 per km²), placing Lake of the Woods County #2,991 nationally for density and #87 in Minnesota. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Minnesota median is 27. Put another way, there are about 220 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 Lake of the Woods County

3 incorporated places lie at least partly in Lake of the Woods County. Together they are home to 1,081 people (28.7%); the other 2,689 (71.3%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Baudette city, with 924 residents in the county.

Population: U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2025 subcounty estimates, counting only the part of each place inside Lake of the Woods County. Land: 2026 Census Gazetteer, for the whole place even where it extends into other counties. How communities are listed.

Metropolitan area

Lake of the Woods County is not part of any metropolitan or micropolitan statistical area in the Office of Management and Budget’s July 2023 delineation; 1,306 other county equivalents are also outside one. These areas are built around an urban core of at least 10,000 people plus the counties tied to it by commuting, so counties outside them are generally rural.

ZIP codes

4 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Lake of the Woods County, and each lies mostly inside the county.

56623566735668656711

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are the Census Bureau’s approximations of USPS ZIP Code service areas, from the 2020 Census relationship files. Post-office-box and single-address ZIP Codes have no tabulation area.

Counties bordering Lake of the Woods County

Lake of the Woods County shares a land border with 3 county equivalents. Each of them has more land than Lake of the Woods County. The largest neighbor is Koochiching County (3,104.7 mi²) and the smallest is Roseau County (1,671.7 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Lake of the Woods County forms a block of 8,578.8 mi² of land, of which it holds 15.1%.

How big is Lake of the Woods County compared with U.S. states?

Lake of the Woods County has more land than 1 of the 50 states. It is about 1.3 times the land area of Rhode Island (1,033.9 mi²), while Delaware, the next larger state, has 1.5 times as much land (1,948.6 mi²). Minnesota’s county land could hold about 61 areas the size of Lake of the Woods County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 36 miles (58 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 Lake of the Woods County?

Lake of the Woods County has more land than 2,760 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 Lake of the Woods County at #378 nationally by total area, 84 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 27.1%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 25.9 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 Lake of the Woods 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.