Mille Lacs County area

Population and density of Mille Lacs County

The Census Bureau estimates that 27,753 people lived in Mille Lacs County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,561 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #39 of 87 in Minnesota. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 26,481, the population has grown by 1,272 (+4.8%), compared with +2.2% for Minnesota as a whole.

With 572.3 square miles of land, that is 48 people per square mile (19 per km²), placing Mille Lacs County #1,583 nationally for density and #29 in Minnesota. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Minnesota median is 27. Put another way, there are about 13 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 Mille Lacs County

Mille Lacs County is divided into 25 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 Princeton city, with 5,209 residents (18.8% of the county). The largest by land is Kathio township, at 42.5 mi², or 7.4% of the county’s land. The county seat, Milaca city, has 3,041 residents. Among those with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Princeton city grew fastest since then (+9.1%).

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

Metropolitan area

Mille Lacs County is an outlying 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; Mille Lacs County accounts for 8.1% of the land and 0.7% 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

12 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Mille Lacs County; 6 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

550515537156313563305634256353563575635856359563635638656450

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 Mille Lacs County

Mille Lacs County shares a land border with 7 county equivalents. It has more land than 4 of them. The largest neighbor is Aitkin County (1,821.3 mi²) and the smallest is Benton County (408.3 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Mille Lacs County forms a block of 6,315.8 mi² of land, of which it holds 9.1%.

How big is Mille Lacs County compared with U.S. states?

Mille Lacs 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. Minnesota’s county land could hold about 139 areas the size of Mille Lacs County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 23.9 miles (38.5 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 Mille Lacs County?

Mille Lacs County has more land than 1,470 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 Mille Lacs County at #1,489 nationally by total area, 263 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%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 14.9 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 Mille Lacs 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.