Davis County · County profile
Davis County, Utah.
Davis County is the thin strip of towns between the Wasatch Mountains and the Great Salt Lake, strung along I-15 north from the Salt Lake City line to the Weber County line and holding 381,227 people on ~299 sq mi. I am Scott Buehler, a Utah resident of more than twenty years and licensed in real estate and lending, and this is the county read the way a local would give it: the commutes, the cost, and the things to do, town by town.
Davis County is the commuter county between two bigger places, and it is comfortable with the role. It runs north from the Salt Lake City line through Farmington and Layton to South Weber, where Weber County and Ogden begin, and for most of that distance it is only a few miles wide, with the Wasatch climbing on the east, the Great Salt Lake filling the west, and the towns stacked in the gap. 381,227 people live on ~299 sq mi, the smallest land area of any county on the Wasatch Front, and nearly every home in the county sits within a couple of exits of I-15. There is no single downtown that anchors the whole thing. The spine is a freeway, a rail line, and a military base, and the towns hang off them.
Two facts explain why it looks the way it does, and the same freeway serves both. Hill Air Force Base, the county's largest employer, occupies the bench between Layton and South Weber, and Salt Lake County, the state's job center, starts at the county's south line, so Davis workers split between the base and the drive south. That pairing is why the county grew +5.1% between the 2020 count and the 2025 estimate, 18,551 people, at a steadier pace than Utah's boom counties, and why median household income of ~$110,900 runs among the highest on the Wasatch Front. And with the lake on one side and the mountains on the other, the county has little open ground left, so the growth shows up as new subdivisions on the last flat land by the lake and as infill in the older towns, never as whole new valleys filling.
This page is the county in one place: the at-a-glance table, the towns largest first, what a budget buys on the bench and by the lake, how the county moves, the ranked things-to-do lists for all 15 towns, and the county set against its neighbors. It is written in my voice, but I am the connector here, not the local agent: I have lived in Utah for more than twenty years and I know the market, and when you are ready to tour I introduce you to a partner agent who works this stretch of the Wasatch Front every week.
In one line
Lake on the west, Wasatch on the east, I-15 down the middle: a county that runs on a commute
At a glance
Davis County at a glance.
The same thirty rows every county page on this site carries, so any two counties can be set side by side without the numbers changing between pages.
| Category | Davis County |
|---|---|
| Size and growth | |
| County seat | FarmingtonLargest town: Layton |
| Population | 381,227 |
| Rank among Utah counties | #3 of 29 |
| Growth since 2020 | +5.1% (18,551 people) |
| 2026 outlook | 384,937 |
| Land area | ~299 sq mi |
| People per square mile | ~1,275 per sq mi |
| Climate and land | |
| Elevation at the seat | ~4,300 ft, valley bench below the Wasatch |
| Climate | Four seasons, valley snow, lake breezes, winter inversions |
| Typical July high | ~91 °F |
| Typical January low | ~20 °F |
| Federal land | 11% federal |
| Private land | 25% private |
| Cost | |
| Median home value | ~$505,500 |
| Median household income | ~$110,900 |
| Property tax | ~0.6% effective on a primary home |
| Combined sales tax at the seat | ~7.25% |
| Getting around | |
| Interstates | I-15 |
| Transit | FrontRunner (Farmington, Layton, Clearfield stations), UTA bus |
| Nearest commercial airport | Salt Lake City International (SLC) ~25 min; none in the county |
| Drive to Salt Lake City airport | ~25 min from Farmington |
| Schools and services | |
| School districts | Davis School District |
| Colleges and universities | Weber State University Davis Campus (Layton), Davis Technical College (Kaysville) |
| Hospitals | Lakeview Hospital (Bountiful), Intermountain Layton Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital Davis (Layton) |
| Largest employers | Hill Air Force Base, Davis School District, Lifetime Products (Clearfield), Lagoon (Farmington) |
| Outdoors | |
| National parks and monuments | None in the county; Golden Spike National Historical Park ~1 hr |
| State parks | Antelope Island State Park |
| Ski areas | None |
| On MovingUtah | |
| City guides | 15 city guides |
| Ranked things-to-do lists | 15 ranked lists across 15 towns |
Population: Census Bureau county population estimates, Vintage 2025 (July 1, 2025). Growth measured from the April 1, 2020 estimates base in the same Census table. 2026 outlook: a straight-line outlook from the 2020 to 2025 Census trend (the Census Bureau does not project county totals). Home values and income: American Community Survey 2020-2024 5-year, county medians. Sales tax: Utah State Tax Commission, combined rate at the county seat, first quarter 2026. Federal and private land: Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, Utah Land Ownership, July 2025. Figures checked September 2026 and rounded; the population figures are exact.
Where the people are
From North Salt Lake to South Weber, fifteen towns along one freeway.
The seat and the biggest towns
Farmington is the seat, the old bench town where the county's government sits, and it also holds two of its best-known landmarks: Lagoon, the amusement park that has anchored summers since the 1880s, and the FrontRunner station with the shops around it. Layton is the largest city and the real market center, spread across the widest part of the county where the bench meets the flat, with Hill Air Force Base jobs on the east and its own freeway frontage running through the middle.
South of Layton the freeway towns step down toward the county line. Bountiful is the county's second-largest city and its oldest big town, spread across the bench with a good share of the county's oldest housing, and Centerville sits next door. Below them, West Bountiful, Woods Cross, and North Salt Lake sit on the flatter ground where the county meets Salt Lake City. These are the closer-in towns, the ones with the shorter drives to Salt Lake and, on the whole, the higher prices.
North of Farmington the bench keeps rising through Kaysville and Fruit Heights, the old orchard towns, up to South Weber where the base and Weber County begin. On the far side of the freeway the ground flattens toward the lake, and there sit Clearfield and Sunset, the county's most affordable ground, while Clinton, West Point, and Syracuse hold much of the newest building, with Antelope Island State Park out in the water beyond them all.
Every city guide in the county
Each of the 15 towns has a full city guide on this site: what the town is like, what it costs, its listings, and its price and feature pages. Largest first.
How the county grows now
- The last open ground. New subdivisions cluster on the flat lakeside ground in Syracuse, West Point, Clinton, and the west side of Layton, the only place whole new streets still appear.
- Infill in the older towns. Bountiful, Centerville, Farmington, and Kaysville have little empty ground, so their market is older homes trading hands and being updated rather than new streets being laid.
- Around the rail. Townhome and attached building has clustered near the FrontRunner corridor at Farmington and along the freeway through Layton, the county's two transit-adjacent centers.
- The number. A straight line through the 2020 count and the 2025 estimate puts the county near 384,937 in 2026, a slow, steady kind of growth, which is what a county with the lake on one side and the mountains on the other does.
New homes, where they still exist
What a budget buys
Older and higher on the bench, newer and nearer the lake on the west.
Home values
The county median is ~$505,500, and the honest way to read it is east to west rather than north to south. The bench towns against the Wasatch, Bountiful, Centerville, Farmington, Kaysville, and Fruit Heights, carry the county's higher city medians, because they hold the older, established neighborhoods with the mountain views and the canyon access. The lakeside and freeway towns, Clearfield, Sunset, Clinton, West Point, and Syracuse, run lower and newer, and Layton, which wraps from the bench across to the flat, spans nearly the whole range on its own.
The price pages show where each budget lands. The county's most approachable ground is in the freeway and lakeside towns: Layton under $400K and Clearfield under $500K are where a first purchase in Davis actually happens, and Syracuse under $600K and Kaysville under $700K sit right behind. The bench's middle market shows up in Farmington under $800K and Centerville over $850K, and the top of the county runs through North Salt Lake over $1M, Bountiful over $850K, and luxury homes in Layton.
The house itself usually tells you which side of the freeway you are on. The bench towns hold the county's older housing, brick ramblers and mid-century homes on small, shaded lots, and buyers there pay for location and updates rather than for the newest roof. The lakeside towns hold newer two-stories on wider lots, and the newest ground sits up toward Syracuse, West Point, and the west side of Layton. Across both sides the single-story home is the county's native house, and the Bountiful single-story and West Point RV-parking pages show how the same house changes with the lot.
Taxes in this county
Property tax at the seat runs ~0.6% effective on a primary home, with a primary residence taxed at 55 percent of its market value, and most of the county's cities land within a few tenths of that. The steadiness traces to the school district and most public services running countywide rather than city by city, so the stacks do not swing the way they do where each town runs its own. A fresh city bond can still nudge a single address, so check the county assessor's parcel record before you write an offer.
Sales tax at the register is ~7.25% at the seat, and the difference from one Davis city to the next is a matter of a few tenths. For the full picture of what the county costs to live in beyond the house, the cost-of-living guide lays the state out by region, and the affordability calculator turns any of these medians into a number you can plan around.
Listings, largest markets first
Run the numbers
- Affordability calculator
- Rent vs buyWorth running here, where a FrontRunner commute is part of the plan for many buyers.
- Conventional mortgage calculator
- All eleven calculators
Getting around
One interstate, one rail line, and a commute that explains the county.
Interstates and transit
Davis has one interstate, I-15, and it is the county's main street. It runs the county's full length, with the bench towns on the east and the lakeside towns on the west, and all fifteen cities hang off an exit or two. A second north-south road, Legacy Parkway, splits off I-15 toward the lake on the south end, and the commuter rail runs beside it through North Salt Lake and Woods Cross, which gives the southern towns a real alternative when the freeway backs up. The daily rhythm is predictable: the southbound lanes load up as the county's Salt Lake workers leave in the morning, and the northbound lanes thicken again in the evening as they come back up the bench.
The county's transit spine is FrontRunner, UTA's commuter rail between Salt Lake City and Ogden, which runs the length of Davis with stations spread along the corridor and UTA buses fanning out to the bench and the lakeside towns from there. A household near a station can reach downtown Salt Lake without ever touching the freeway, which is a quiet advantage on the days I-15 is slow. For the straight comparison of this commute against the rest of the state, the best Utah city commute guide lays it out.
The airport and the drive
Davis County has no commercial airport of its own. The airport everyone in the county flies from is Salt Lake City International, ~25 min from Farmington. Layton and the north end add roughly five minutes to that drive, and the south end shaves a few off, which makes the airport one more reason the southern half of the county carries the higher prices.
Drive times, off-peak
- Farmington to downtown Salt Lake City
- About 20 minutes on I-15, off-peak.
- Bountiful to downtown Salt Lake City
- About 15 minutes on I-15, off-peak.
- Layton to the Salt Lake City airport
- About 30 minutes on I-15 and I-80.
- Layton to Ogden
- About 20 minutes north on I-15.
- Syracuse to Antelope Island
- About 15 minutes west to the causeway entrance.
Things to do
Between the lake and the Wasatch, fifteen towns, fifteen ranked lists.
Every town in Davis County has its own ranked things-to-do list on The Local, researched and written for that place and sized honestly to what it actually holds. The lists run below, town by town, and they are the county's Saturday answer: what to do when you live here, not when you are passing through. The region reads beside them cover the ground no single town owns, from the base to the bay.
Region reads
The county-wide pages that no single town owns.
- Antelope Island, from the entrance station south
- The Davis canyons, mouth by mouth and over the top
- The Legacy Parkway Trail, end to end
- Hill Air Force Base, as a place and an economy
- Farmington Bay and the birding
- The lakeside parks, pond by pond
The honest read
The honest read is that Davis County weekends run to water and open sky more than to alpine drama. The county has no ski area and no high mountain lake of its own, so a Saturday that needs real elevation is a drive up one of the canyons behind the towns or over into the counties on either side. What Davis has instead, and what most of the state does not, is a shoreline: Antelope Island on a clear evening, bison on the grass and the whole Wasatch Front lit across the water, is the deepest single place the county owns, and Lagoon is its loud, built counterweight. Know which of those two Saturdays you want before you choose a side of the freeway.
Schools and services
One school district for the whole county, and hospitals spread along the freeway.
School districts
Every public school in the county sits in one district: Davis School District. That is unusual on the Wasatch Front, where most counties are split among several districts, and it removes the boundary worry buyers bring from other markets, where one street can fall on different sides of a line. The whole county is in the district, each city guide names it, and I do not rate schools anywhere on this site: I state the district, point to the facts it publishes, and leave the judgment to you.
Colleges and hospitals
Higher education is a short drive rather than a college town. Weber State University Davis Campus (Layton), Davis Technical College (Kaysville), so a four-year start or a technical credential is available without leaving the county, and Weber State's full campus is a short drive north in Ogden. Hospitals sit at three points along the county so no town is far from care: Lakeview Hospital (Bountiful), Intermountain Layton Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital Davis (Layton). For the region's largest specialty hospitals, the drive is about a half hour south into Salt Lake County.
By the state's list of its largest employers, the county's anchors are Hill Air Force Base, Davis School District, Lifetime Products (Clearfield), Lagoon (Farmington). Hill Air Force Base is the load-bearing one, among the biggest worksites in Utah, and the mix of federal jobs, the school district, and the county's manufacturers is why median household income here, ~$110,900, runs near the top of the Wasatch Front and why the housing market has been steadier than the state's boom-and-cooler counties. The base and the commute give the county its character: it does not swing on one industry, and it does not empty out when a boom fades.
Guides for this move
- Relocating to Utah, an orientation
- First-time buyers in UtahA county where the lakeside towns are where a first purchase still happens.
- Moving up to your next homeThe move from a lakeside first home to a bench address is the classic Davis second step.
- Downsizing in UtahOften a move toward a FrontRunner station and the hospitals.
- Retiring to the Wasatch Front
Compare it
Davis County against its neighbors.
The full side-by-side pages built so far for this county. The matchup tool on the county hub builds any other pair, and routes you here if the pair is not built yet.
Any two counties
The county matchup tool
Pick Davis County and any of the other nineteen, and see the same table side by side.
Build a matchupCity vs city
Compare the county's cities
Layton vs Ogden, Layton vs Salt Lake City, Layton vs Provo, and every other pairing that crosses the county line.
Compare citiesAlready own here?
What a home in Davis County is worth
A value built by hand from real Wasatch Front sales, not an algorithm, and a path to get featured where buyers are already looking.
Start the valuationCommon questions
Davis County, answered.
What cities are in Davis County?
Fifteen cities have full guides on this site, largest first: Layton, Bountiful, Syracuse, Kaysville, Clearfield, Farmington, Centerville, North Salt Lake, Clinton, West Point, Woods Cross, Fruit Heights, South Weber, Sunset, and West Bountiful. Farmington is the county seat and Layton is the largest city. The county is only a few miles wide for most of its length, so every one of the fifteen sits within a short drive of an I-15 exit.
How long is the commute from Davis County to Salt Lake City?
The drive runs north and south on I-15, and it is one of the reasons the county fills up the way it does. From Farmington, downtown Salt Lake City is about twenty minutes off-peak; from Layton it is closer to thirty. The airport is ~25 min from Farmington. Rush hour adds real time, with the southbound morning and the northbound evening as the heavy directions, and FrontRunner offers a car-free option from the county's stations.
Where are the least expensive homes in Davis County?
The lakeside and freeway towns carry the county's lowest city medians: Clearfield and Sunset, with the west side of Layton close by, and Clinton, West Point, and Syracuse a step up toward the newer ground. The trade is distance from the bench, where the older, higher-priced neighborhoods sit against the mountains. The county median is ~$505,500, and the price pages for the towns named here show what is actually listed today.
Is Davis County still growing?
Slowly and steadily. The county added +5.1% between the 2020 count and the 2025 estimate, 18,551 people, and a straight line through those two points puts it near 384,937 in 2026. There is little open ground left, so the growth concentrates on the west side in Syracuse, West Point, Clinton, and the newer parts of Layton, plus infill around the rail stations. For a buyer that means steady demand and older homes making up most of what sells.
What is there to do in Davis County?
Antelope Island State Park sits near the top of the list, with bison, beaches, and sunset views across the Great Salt Lake toward the whole Wasatch Front. Lagoon, in Farmington, is the county's big built attraction, and Farmington Bay and the lakeside parks draw the birders and the walkers. Every one of the county's 15 towns also carries its own ranked things-to-do list on The Local, so the answer changes depending on which town you are standing in.
Next step
Looking at Davis County? Let's narrow it to a town.
Tell me where the job is, whether the drive runs to Salt Lake or to the base, and what the budget looks like. I will give you the honest read on which side of the freeway fits, and when you are ready I introduce you to the partner agent who works that part of Davis County every week.
If you buy or sell outside Southern Utah, I connect you with a trusted local partner agent and stay involved through your move. If you work with that agent, their brokerage pays my brokerage (Real Broker, LLC) a referral fee. It comes out of the agent's compensation, not as an added cost to you, and you are always free to choose your own agent.