Oklahoma county map

How Oklahoma’s counties are laid out

Oklahoma’s 77 counties divide 69,899 square miles and 3,959,353 people (2020). The map records the state’s double origin. The western half was Oklahoma Territory, opened by land runs from 1889, and its counties are tidy survey-grid rectangles; the eastern half was Indian Territory, and its counties were only drawn in 1907, at statehood, from the lands of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole nations — hence names such as Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole, Sequoyah, Pushmataha, Okfuskee and Pontotoc. Osage County, the largest, matches the Osage Nation reservation exactly.

The first seven counties were created by the Organic Act of 1890 and simply numbered; the territorial legislature later named them Logan, Oklahoma, Cleveland, Canadian, Kingfisher, Payne and Beaver, the last covering the whole 170-mile Panhandle (“No Man’s Land”). The Cherokee Outlet opening of 1893 added Kay, Grant, Woods, Garfield, Noble, Pawnee and others, and the 1907 constitution fixed the 75 counties at statehood. Two came later: Harmon (1909, from Greer) and Cotton (1912, from Comanche), the newest county in the state.

Population is concentrated along the Interstate 44 corridor from Lawton (Comanche County) through Oklahoma City, Norman (Cleveland County) and Tulsa. Oklahoma, Tulsa, Cleveland and Canadian counties hold about 45 per cent of the state. The whole state is officially on Central Time, though Kenton, the westernmost village in Cimarron County, keeps Mountain Time unofficially.

All 77 counties of Oklahoma

Five county facts

• Largest by area: Osage County, seat Pawhuska, about 2,250 square miles of tallgrass prairie north of Tulsa. Texas County in the Panhandle, McCurtain County in the south-east corner and Beaver County are each over 1,800 square miles.
• Smallest by area: Marshall County, seat Madill, about 370 square miles of land on the Red River, much of it under Lake Texoma. Tulsa County itself is only about 570 square miles.
• Most populous: Oklahoma County, with about 796,000 people in 2020; Tulsa County is second at about 669,000 and Cleveland County third at about 296,000.
• Least populous: Cimarron County, seat Boise City, with about 2,300 people at the far end of the Panhandle, where Oklahoma meets Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico and Texas — the only county in the country bordering four states. Harmon County (Hollis) is the next smallest.
• Oldest and newest: Logan, Oklahoma, Cleveland, Canadian, Kingfisher, Payne and Beaver counties (1890) are the oldest; Cotton County (1912) the newest. Oklahoma has no independent cities, though Oklahoma City spreads into four counties (Oklahoma, Canadian, Cleveland and Pottawatomie).

Reading the map

Press Streets and zoom in on the highlighted state to see county lines. The Red River forms the entire Texas border east of the 100th meridian, with Harmon, Jackson, Tillman, Cotton, Jefferson, Love, Marshall, Bryan, Choctaw and McCurtain counties along it. The Arkansas River enters from Kansas in Kay County and crosses Osage, Pawnee, Tulsa, Wagoner, Muskogee, Haskell, Sequoyah and Le Flore counties to Arkansas, joined at Muskogee by the Verdigris and Grand rivers from the Ozark counties of the north-east. The Canadian River cuts diagonally from Ellis County past Oklahoma City to Eufaula. The three Panhandle counties — Cimarron, Texas and Beaver — are each about 34 miles wide and lie on the high plains at 3,000 to 4,900 feet.

Related maps

• Oklahoma map — cities, borders and geography.
• Blank Oklahoma map and printable Oklahoma map.
• Oklahoma City, the state capital and largest city, in Oklahoma County.
• Neighbouring county maps: Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado.
• West South Central division · the South · Great Plains region · Central Time Zone.
• Geography: Arkansas River, Ozarks, Great Plains.
• All US county maps.