States · Minnesota
Minnesota: every county, ranked.
The State Screen scores all 87 counties in Minnesota from 0 to 100 against each other on the four things a homestead can't do without: water, privacy, hazard exposure and access. Nothing is screened out.
Top five counties
- Grant County
- Koochiching County
- Lac qui Parle County
- Yellow Medicine County
- Swift County
In order, without their scores. Every county's score, its four sub-scores and the raw numbers behind them are in the free map.
Free for an email address: a Google Earth file with every county clickable.
What the map says about Minnesota
Rainfall runs from 22 to 38 inches a year across Minnesota, with the median county at 30.
Across Minnesota, the typical well is 128 ft deep. In 62% of its counties the median well is 150 ft or shallower; in 1% it is 400 ft or more.
The hazard that scores worst most often is tornado, in 47 of 87 counties.
47% of Minnesota's counties sit outside every metro commuting ring, and the median one is 13 miles from a town of 5,000.
These are counties, not parcels. A good score says the region has the water, the quiet and the hazard profile; it says nothing about a particular piece of land's flood zone, access or water source.
Then make it yours
The State Screen is one opinion of what matters. The complete map is 35 layers you switch on and off to suit your own search — wildfire, water rights, radon, well depth, state gun and homeschool law, distance from the cities, military sites and more — across the US, Canada and Mexico.