Grant County area

Population and density of Grant County

The Census Bureau estimates that 52,446 people lived in Grant County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #994 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #28 of 72 in Wisconsin. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 51,950, the population has grown by 496 (+1%), compared with +1.3% for Wisconsin as a whole.

With 1,147.6 square miles of land, that is 46 people per square mile (18 per km²), placing Grant County #1,636 nationally for density and #39 in Wisconsin. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Wisconsin median is 51. Put another way, there are about 14 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 Grant County

Grant County is divided into 52 cities and towns. In Wisconsin, county subdivisions are local governments, and together they cover all of the county’s land and residents; a few are unorganized areas without their own government.

The most populous is Platteville city, with 11,815 residents (22.5% of the county). The largest by land is Beetown town, at 48.2 mi², or 4.2% of the county’s land. The county seat, Lancaster city, has 4,031 residents. Among those with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Dickeyville village grew fastest since then (+6.8%).

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

Metropolitan area

Grant County is a central county of the Platteville, WI Micropolitan Statistical Area. Grant County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the micro area has the same 1,147.6 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #148 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #211 by population.

ZIP codes

24 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Grant County; 20 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

535185354353554535695357353801538025380453805538065380753808538095381053811538125381353816538175381853820538215382553827

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 Grant County

Grant County shares a land border with 7 county equivalents, including 3 in Iowa and Illinois. It has more land than every one of them. The largest neighbor is Clayton County (778.5 mi²) and the smallest is Crawford County (570.8 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Grant County forms a block of 5,688.5 mi² of land, of which it holds 20.2%.

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

Grant County has more land than 1 of the 50 states. It is about 1.1 times the land area of Rhode Island (1,033.9 mi²), while Delaware, the next larger state, has 1.7 times as much land (1,948.6 mi²). Wisconsin’s county land could hold about 47 areas the size of Grant County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 33.9 miles (54.5 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 Grant County?

Grant County has more land than 2,684 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 Grant County at #601 nationally by total area, 63 places farther from the top than its land rank. Other county equivalents gain more area when their water measurements are included.

Its water share is 3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1.9 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 Grant 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.