Oregon county map

How Oregon’s counties are laid out

Oregon’s 36 counties cover 98,379 square miles, and the Cascade Range splits them into two very different sets. West of the Cascades, in the Willamette Valley and along the coast, the counties are small and crowded: Multnomah (Portland), Washington, Clackamas, Marion (Salem) and Lane (Eugene) hold about two-thirds of the 4,237,256 people counted in 2020 in a strip 60 miles wide. East of the mountains the counties are huge and dry — Harney, Malheur, Lake, Grant and Klamath together cover a third of the state and hold under 3 per cent of its people.

The oldest counties predate the territory. The provisional government of 1843 divided the settled Willamette Valley into four districts — Champoeg, Clackamas, Tuality and Yamhill — and Champoeg and Tuality were renamed Marion and Washington in 1849. Oregon Territory (1848) and the state (1859) added the coastal and southern counties through the 1850s and 1860s, and the eastern ranch and mining counties in the 1860s to 1880s as Baker, Union, Grant, Umatilla and Wasco were carved up. Deschutes County, split from Crook in 1916 around the new railroad town of Bend, is the newest.

Oregon is a split time-zone state. Nearly all of Malheur County, on the Idaho line, keeps Mountain Time with Boise; only its far northern corner, and the rest of the state, is on Pacific Time.

All 36 counties of Oregon

Five county facts

• Largest by area: Harney County, seat Burns, about 10,130 square miles of high desert, sagebrush and the Malheur wildlife refuge — larger than Vermont or New Hampshire. Malheur (about 9,890 square miles) and Lake (about 8,140) are close behind; the three together are about the size of Maryland and Massachusetts combined.
• Smallest by area: Multnomah County, seat Portland, about 430 square miles along the south bank of the Columbia. Hood River, Columbia and Benton counties are also under 700 square miles.
• Most populous: Multnomah County, with about 815,000 people in 2020, followed by Washington County (Hillsboro) at about 600,000 and Clackamas County (Oregon City) at about 421,000. The three Portland-area counties hold 43 per cent of the state.
• Least populous: Wheeler County, seat Fossil, with about 1,450 people in the John Day country of north-central Oregon. Sherman (Moro) and Gilliam (Condon) counties on the Columbia plateau each have under 2,100.
• Oldest and newest: Clackamas, Marion, Washington and Yamhill counties (1843) are the oldest; Deschutes (1916) is the newest. Oregon has no independent cities. Metro, the elected regional government of the Portland area, covers parts of Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties but is not a county.

Reading the map

Press Streets and zoom in on the highlighted state to see county lines. The Columbia River forms the Washington border from Wallowa County west to the Pacific, and Umatilla, Morrow, Gilliam, Sherman, Wasco, Hood River, Multnomah, Columbia and Clatsop counties front it. The Snake River makes the Idaho line along Malheur, Baker and Wallowa counties, including Hells Canyon. The Willamette flows north from Lane County through Linn, Benton, Marion, Polk, Yamhill, Clackamas and Washington counties to join the Columbia at Portland. The coast counties — Clatsop, Tillamook, Lincoln, Lane, Douglas, Coos and Curry — run 360 miles from the Columbia bar to the California line, and Crater Lake lies in Klamath County.

Related maps

• Oregon map — cities, borders and geography.
• Blank Oregon map and printable Oregon map.
• Salem, the state capital, in Marion County; Portland, the largest city, in Multnomah County.
• Neighbouring county maps: Washington, Idaho, Nevada, California.
• Pacific division · the West · Pacific Northwest · Pacific and Mountain time zones.
• Geography: Columbia River, Cascade Range, Snake River.
• All US county maps.