Wright County area

Population and density of Wright County

The Census Bureau estimates that 157,559 people lived in Wright County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #451 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #10 of 87 in Minnesota. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 141,337, the population has grown by 16,222 (+11.5%), compared with +2.2% for Minnesota as a whole.

With 661.2 square miles of land, that is 238 people per square mile (92 per km²), placing Wright County #589 nationally for density and #10 in Minnesota. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Minnesota median is 27. Put another way, there are about 2.7 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 Wright County

Wright County is divided into 36 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 Otsego city, with 24,525 residents (15.6% of the county). The largest by land is Franklin township, at 40.2 mi², or 6.1% of the county’s land. The county seat, Buffalo city, has 16,878 residents. Among those with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Hanover city grew fastest since then (+24.9%).

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

Metropolitan area

Wright 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; Wright County accounts for 9.4% of the land and 4.2% 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

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

55301553025531355320553215532855330553415534955358553625536355373553745537655382553885539055395

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 Wright County

Wright County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. It has more land than 5 of them. The largest neighbor is Stearns County (1,342.9 mi²) and the smallest is Carver County (353.9 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Wright County forms a block of 4,444.4 mi² of land, of which it holds 14.9%.

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

Wright County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.6 times as much. Minnesota’s county land could hold about 120 areas the size of Wright County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 25.7 miles (41.4 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 Wright County?

Wright County has more land than 1,802 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 Wright County at #1,401 nationally by total area, 19 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 7.5%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 6.3 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 Wright 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.