Kossuth County, IA harvested more corn for grain in 2022 than any other county with a published figure, and Stutsman County, ND harvested the most soybeans. Neither crop is concentrated, though: the ten leading corn counties together account for only 3.4% of the 80,597,963 acres harvested nationally, and the ten leading soybean counties for 3.8% of 84,599,236 acres. Corn and soybeans are grown across 2,312 and 1,873 counties respectively, more widely than almost any other crop in the census.
The ten leading corn counties
Illinois dominates the corn list with 5 of the top ten counties, joined by counties in Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota.
| # | County | Corn for grain, acres | Share of US |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kossuth County, IA | 304,340 | 0.38% |
| 2 | Iroquois County, IL | 302,965 | 0.38% |
| 3 | LaSalle County, IL | 289,573 | 0.36% |
| 4 | Livingston County, IL | 282,327 | 0.35% |
| 5 | McLean County, IL | 278,245 | 0.35% |
| 6 | Brown County, SD | 273,340 | 0.34% |
| 7 | Renville County, MN | 271,325 | 0.34% |
| 8 | Champaign County, IL | 261,772 | 0.32% |
| 9 | Redwood County, MN | 257,104 | 0.32% |
| 10 | Pottawattamie County, IA | 255,306 | 0.32% |
The ten leading soybean counties
The soybean ranking reaches further north and south. Four of the top ten are in North Dakota, and the Mississippi Delta appears through Bolivar County, MS. Only 2 counties appear in both top-ten lists: Iroquois County, IL, Brown County, SD.
| # | County | Soybeans, acres | Share of US |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stutsman County, ND | 391,198 | 0.46% |
| 2 | Cass County, ND | 387,830 | 0.46% |
| 3 | Bolivar County, MS | 332,370 | 0.39% |
| 4 | Barnes County, ND | 327,067 | 0.39% |
| 5 | Polk County, MN | 325,204 | 0.38% |
| 6 | Brown County, SD | 308,441 | 0.36% |
| 7 | Spink County, SD | 303,411 | 0.36% |
| 8 | Iroquois County, IL | 294,879 | 0.35% |
| 9 | Richland County, ND | 293,045 | 0.35% |
| 10 | Mississippi County, AR | 291,118 | 0.34% |
The states behind the totals
At state level the picture is more concentrated than at county level. Iowa harvested 12,637,070 acres of corn for grain, ahead of Illinois and Nebraska. For soybeans the order is Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota. The state pages list every county in each state with its farm sales and largest product group.
How much cropland the two crops take
Together, corn for grain and soybeans account for acreage equal to 54.8% of all harvested cropland in the United States. Some fields are counted twice when a crop follows another in the same year, so the share is an upper bound rather than an exact slice. In 570 counties, corn and soybean acres together equal at least 80% of harvested cropland: these are the places where the two-crop rotation defines the landscape.
Corn for silage is a different map
The census counts corn harvested for grain and corn chopped for silage separately. Silage corn is livestock feed, and its map follows the dairy herd more closely than the grain belt. Tulare County, CA harvests the most silage corn of any county with a published figure, and 9 of the ten leading silage counties are also among the 25 counties with the most milk cows. Only 5,978,417 acres of corn were cut for silage nationally, against 80,597,963 acres harvested for grain.
Spread across a whole state
Iowa shows how evenly the grain belt is planted. Every one of its 99 counties reports corn for grain, and the state harvested 12,637,070 acres in total, yet no Iowa county besides Kossuth County, IA reaches the national top five. At the other end, 323 counties report neither corn for grain nor soybeans, out of 3,029 counties on this site.
In the sales mix
Corn and soybeans are sold under one census heading, grains, oilseeds, dry beans and dry peas. In Kossuth County, IA that group brought in 61.6% of farm sales in 2022, and in Stutsman County, ND 85.3%. On their county pages the grain patch fills most of the sales quilt, while in livestock counties with large corn acreage the grain patch can be much smaller, as in Sioux County, IA, where grains and oilseeds made up 18.4% of sales.
Reading the share column
The share columns above compare one county with the whole country, and a share of 0.35% can be a leading position. On county profiles the same share appears for every crop the county grows, so a reader can see at once which crops make the county nationally important and which are only locally common.
What changed since 2017
Both crops covered less ground in 2022 than in 2017. Corn for grain fell from 84,738,562 to 80,597,963 acres (−4.9%), soybeans from 90,149,480 to 84,599,236 (−6.2%). Harvested acreage in a single year depends on weather and planting decisions, so a census-to-census comparison shows two snapshots rather than a trend line.
Going further
The corn for grain and soybeans pages show the 25 leading counties and the leading states with their change since 2017. The top-counties explorer ranks every county with a published figure and can be narrowed to one state, which is the quickest way to see, for example, where corn is grown in Nebraska or soybeans in Ohio. Counties where USDA withheld the figure to protect an individual farm are counted but not ranked; how to read the data explains why.
Sources
USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2022 Census of Agriculture and 2017 Census of Agriculture, county, state and national data (bulk files at www.nass.usda.gov/datasets/). Tables and charts computed by Farm Census.