Salt Lake County · County profile
Salt Lake County, Utah
One valley, eighteen cities, and more than a third of the state's people. Salt Lake County is the capital, the airport, the rail lines, the hospitals, and the ski canyons, packed onto ~742 sq mi between the Wasatch and the Oquirrhs. I am Scott Buehler, a Utah resident of twenty-plus years and licensed in real estate and lending, and this is the county read the way a local would give it: what it costs, how it moves, and what a Saturday looks like in every one of its towns.
Every road into Utah eventually points at this county. The airport is here, the capitol is here, the University of Utah and its hospital are here, and so are the offices of most of the companies that put Utah on the map. Salt Lake County holds 1,220,916 people, more than a third of the state, on a piece of land small enough that you can drive from the north end to the south in forty minutes when the freeway cooperates. It is the only county in Utah that reads as one continuous city, and the reason is simple: the Wasatch on the east and the Oquirrh Mountains on the west leave a valley about fifteen miles wide, and it filled up.
That fullness is the fact that explains everything else. The county grew only +3.0% since the 2020 count, 35,681 people, while Utah County next door added a hundred thousand. Growth here is vertical: towers downtown, apartments where warehouses stood, townhome rows along the TRAX lines. New single-family neighborhoods exist only on the last open ground in the southwest corner, in Herriman and around Daybreak, and once those are built the county will grow by replacing things, not by adding them. For a buyer that means the market is deep and steady rather than fast, that an older home on a mature lot is the normal purchase, and that proximity, to the airport, to rail, to the canyons, is the thing you are really paying for.
This page is the county in one place: the at-a-glance table, the cities largest first, what a budget buys on the bench and on the valley floor, how the county moves, the ranked things-to-do list for all eighteen towns, and the county compared with 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 valley every week.
In one line
Full, dense, and central: the county you choose for proximity, not for room.
At a glance
Salt Lake County at a glance
The same thirty facts every county page on this site carries, so any two counties can be set side by side without a number changing between pages. Open any matchup in the Compare section to see them in two columns.
County offices in: Salt Lake City · Land area: ~742 sq mi · Density: ~1,645 per sq mi
- Population
- 1,220,916
- #1 of 29 counties
- Growth since 2020
- +3.0%
- 35,681 people · 2026 outlook 1,228,052
- Median home value
- ~$525,700
- #5 of 20 profiled
- Household income
- ~$97,500
- #8 of 20 profiled
- Property tax
- ~0.55%
- effective, primary home
- Sales tax
- ~8.45%
- combined, at the seat
Climate and land ~4,300 ft, valley floor
Four seasons, valley snow, winter inversions. ~52 inches of snow a year at the seat. ~222 sunny days a year at the seat.
Getting around
- Interstates
- I-15, I-80, I-215
- Transit
- TRAX light rail (three lines), S-Line streetcar, FrontRunner, UTA bus
- Airport
- Salt Lake City International (SLC), in the county
- Drive to SLC
- ~10 min from downtown; ~25 to 30 min from the south end
Outdoors
- Ski areas
- Alta, Snowbird, Brighton, Solitude
- State parks
- Great Salt Lake State Park (marina), Jordan River Off-Highway Vehicle State Park
- National parks
- None in the county; Timpanogos Cave National Monument ~45 min
Schools
- Districts
- Salt Lake City, Granite, Jordan, Canyons, Murray
- Colleges
- University of Utah, Salt Lake Community College, Westminster University
Health and work
- Hospitals
- Intermountain Medical Center, University of Utah Hospital, Primary Children's, St. Mark's, LDS Hospital, Riverton, Alta View, Jordan Valley, Lone Peak
- Largest employers
- Intermountain Health, University of Utah, State of Utah, Delta Air Lines, Zions Bancorporation
On MovingUtah
Everything this site holds for the county, one level down.
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 in the town that holds the county offices, 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
One valley, eighteen cities, and lines you cross without noticing
The seat and the biggest towns
Salt Lake City is the seat and the largest city, about a sixth of the county, sitting at the north end where the valley meets the foothills. Downtown, the Avenues, Sugar House, and the east bench under the University of Utah are the parts of the county with the oldest housing and the strongest street life. West Valley City is second, the big working city on the west side of I-15 with the county's most approachable prices, and West Jordan is third, the anchor of the southwest.
From there the county runs south in two columns. On the east, the bench cities under the Wasatch: Millcreek, Holladay, Cottonwood Heights, Sandy, and Draper, each a step closer to the canyons and a step up in price. On the west, the valley-floor and Oquirrh-side cities: Taylorsville, Kearns, Magna, South Jordan with the big Daybreak development, Riverton, Herriman climbing the Oquirrh bench, and Bluffdale at the Point of the Mountain. Down the middle, along the rail lines, Murray, Midvale, and South Salt Lake are the older mid-valley towns that TRAX has been quietly rebuilding.
The lines between them matter less than you would think. Most run down the middle of a street, the school districts ignore them, and the county provides the library, the health department, and the recorder for all eighteen. What the city does change is the property tax stack and the feel of the streets: Holladay and Millcreek read as old east-bench neighborhoods, Herriman and Daybreak read as new, and Murray and Midvale read as the small towns they were before the valley grew around them.
Every city guide in the county
Each of the eighteen has a full guide on this site: what it is like, what it costs, its listings, its price pages, and its communities. Largest first.
| School district | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Salt Lake City | ~218,400 | ~$539,500 | ~0.55% effective | ~4,300 ft | Salt Lake City School District |
| West Valley City | ~137,500 | ~$419,100 | ~0.55% effective | ~4,304 ft | Granite School District |
| West Jordan | ~116,800 | ~$492,500 | ~0.55% effective | ~4,373 ft | Jordan School District |
| Sandy | ~92,400 | ~$614,100 | ~0.55% effective | ~4,394 ft | Canyons School District |
| South Jordan | ~87,600 | ~$650,500 | ~0.55% effective | ~4,400 ft | Jordan School District |
| Millcreek | ~63,900 | ~$627,200 | ~0.55% effective | ~4,398 ft | Granite School District |
| Taylorsville | ~57,500 | ~$433,800 | ~0.55% effective | ~4,390 ft | Granite School District |
| Herriman | ~63,300 | ~$590,700 | ~0.55% effective | ~4,850 ft | Jordan School District |
| Draper | ~50,700 | ~$784,800 | ~0.55% effective | ~4,505 ft | Canyons School District |
| Murray | ~53,300 | ~$507,500 | ~0.55% effective | ~4,300 ft | Murray City School District |
| Riverton | ~47,400 | ~$592,700 | ~0.55% effective | ~4,445 ft | Jordan School District |
| Midvale | ~36,100 | ~$436,600 | ~0.55% effective | ~4,345 ft | Canyons School District |
| Cottonwood Heights | ~32,300 | ~$694,100 | ~0.55% effective | ~4,820 ft | Canyons School District |
| Kearns | ~35,400 | ~$373,700 | ~0.55% effective | ~4,676 ft | Granite School District |
| Magna | ~35,400 | ~$376,200 | ~0.55% effective | ~4,278 ft | Granite School District |
| Holladay | ~31,200 | ~$763,400 | ~0.55% effective | ~4,465 ft | Granite School District |
| South Salt Lake | ~26,900 | ~$410,200 | ~0.55% effective | ~4,255 ft | Granite School District |
| Bluffdale | ~19,500 | ~$685,500 | ~0.55% effective | ~4,493 ft | Jordan School District |
Population, value, tax, and elevation figures come from each city's own guide on this site; click a column to sort. Largest city first by default.
Before the freeway
The county is named for the Great Salt Lake, and it is one of Utah's original counties, organized in 1850, three years after the first wagon companies came down Emigration Canyon and started laying out farms along the creeks. For its first century the valley ran on faith, farming, and ore: the church built its city at the north end, the railroad reached it in 1870, and the Bingham Canyon mine in the Oquirrhs grew into one of the largest open-pit copper mines on earth, which it still is. The suburbs are the recent part of the story. Murray and Midvale were smelter towns, Sandy was a mining rail stop, and most of the valley floor was farm ground into the 1970s, which is why a bench neighborhood and a valley neighborhood a mile apart can feel a generation apart.
How the county grows now
- Up. Residential towers downtown and apartments across the old Granary District south of it.
- Along the rail. Townhome rows where single lots stood near TRAX stations in Murray, Midvale, and South Salt Lake.
- The last open ground. Herriman and Daybreak in the southwest, the only place whole neighborhoods are still being platted.
- The number. A straight line through the 2020 count and the 2025 estimate puts the county near 1,228,052 in 2026, barely above today, which is what a full valley does.
New homes, where they still exist
What a budget buys
What your money does on the valley floor and up the bench
Home values
The county median is ~$525,700, and the county median is close to useless here, because the valley runs from the least expensive big-city housing on the Wasatch Front to some of the most expensive. The money runs east to west. On the bench, Draper's city median sits far above the county figure and Sandy, Cottonwood Heights, and Millcreek are not far behind, because those are the neighborhoods with the views, the mature trees, and the twenty-minute drive to Alta. On the valley floor and the west side, West Valley City, Kearns, Magna, and Taylorsville carry medians well under the county line, and they are the places where a first purchase in Salt Lake County actually happens.
The price pages show it street by street. Under half a million is a real search on the west side and in the north end: West Valley City under $500K, West Jordan under $500K, Salt Lake City under $500K, Murray under $500K. The mid-valley price range, where most of the county's sales land, is Sandy under $750K, South Jordan under $800K, and Millcreek under $800K. And the top of the market is the bench and the SunCrest ridge: luxury homes in Draper, Sandy over $1.5M, Salt Lake City over $1.5M on the east bench and in the Avenues.
What you buy at any of those prices is usually an older home. The county's housing stock runs from 1900s brick in the city to 1970s and 1980s split-levels and ramblers across the middle of the valley to 1990s and 2000s two-stories in the southwest, and the newest single-family neighborhoods are almost all in Herriman and Daybreak. Buyers coming from newer markets should read the county's basement-home and single-story pages, because the basement rambler is the valley's native house and it changes how square footage reads on a listing.
Taxes in this county
Property tax at the seat runs ~0.55% effective on a primary home, on 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 exceptions are the newer cities that carry special service areas for fire and police, Herriman being the clearest case, and any city or district carrying a fresh bond; check the exact rate for an address on the county assessor's site before you write an offer. Sales tax at the register is ~8.45% in Salt Lake City, the highest combined rate among the courthouse towns on this site because the city stacks its own levies on the county and state base; the suburbs run somewhat lower.
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 payment you can plan around.
Listings, largest markets first
Run the numbers
- Affordability calculator
- Rent vs buy, worth running here, where the rental market is the deepest in the state
- Conventional mortgage calculator
- All eleven calculators
Browse the county by budget
Pick the price range, then the town. Every link is a live price page on this site, and each town's link stays inside the budget you chose.
Getting around
The county where the rail already exists
Interstates and transit
Three interstates cross the county: I-15, I-80, I-215. I-15 runs the length of the valley and is the road every commute eventually touches; I-80 crosses it east to west, from Parleys Canyon and Park City to the airport and the salt flats; and I-215 is the belt route that lets the east bench and the west side reach each other without going through downtown. The freeways are wide and mostly finished, and the daily slow spots are predictable: the I-15 core through downtown in both rushes, and the Point of the Mountain at the south end, where Utah County's commuters pour in.
The transit is what sets this county apart from every other in the state. TRAX light rail (three lines), S-Line streetcar, FrontRunner, UTA bus. TRAX reaches downtown, the University of Utah, the airport, Murray, Midvale, Sandy, Draper, West Jordan, South Jordan, and Daybreak; FrontRunner runs north to Ogden and south to Provo; and the buses fill in the middle. A household that chooses a home near a TRAX station can genuinely live with one car, which is a sentence that is true nowhere else on the Wasatch Front. The canyon winter access page covers the ski buses and the rules that move a powder morning.
The airport and the drive
Salt Lake City International (SLC), in the county. It is a Delta hub with a terminal rebuilt in the 2020s and direct flights to most of the country, and it is ~10 min from downtown; ~25 to 30 min from the south end. For frequent flyers that is one of the quiet arguments for this county over the ones around it: Davis County is close, Utah County is forty-five minutes, and everything beyond is a real drive. The Green Line TRAX runs from the airport terminal to downtown, which matters more than it sounds on a snowy January morning.
Drive times, off-peak
- Downtown to the airport
- About 10 minutes on I-80, or the Green Line.
- Downtown to Draper
- About 25 minutes on I-15; TRAX Blue Line runs the same route.
- Sandy to Alta
- About 30 minutes up Little Cottonwood on a normal day; a powder day is its own subject.
- Downtown to Provo
- About 45 minutes on I-15, an hour on FrontRunner.
- Downtown to Park City
- About 35 minutes up Parleys Canyon on I-80.
Things to do
Eighteen towns, eighteen ranked lists
Every city in Salt Lake County has its own ranked things-to-do list on The Local, researched and written for that town. Salt Lake City's runs twelve deep, and the rest are the honest length of what each town actually holds. Largest town first.
Region reads
The county-wide pages that no single town owns.
- The Cottonwood canyons, from the valley floor up
- The valley in winter, and the lid that sits on it
- The Jordan River Parkway, the valley's long green line
- Downtown Salt Lake, block by block
- The Great Salt Lake, and why the valley watches it
- Family weekends in the valley, planned by activity and price
The honest read
This is the deepest weekend bench in the state, and it is deep in two directions at once: a downtown with more restaurants, venues, and museums than the rest of Utah combined, and four ski areas in two canyons twenty minutes from the bench. What the county does not have is quiet. If your Saturday is a trailhead with nobody on it, the Cottonwoods will disappoint you on a holiday weekend, and the counties over the mountains will not.
The county's year
The events that anchor the calendar here, month by month.
January and February
Ski season peaks in the Cottonwood canyonsAlta, Snowbird, Brighton, and Solitude all sit inside the county line.
July
Days of '47 and Pioneer DayJuly 24 is a state holiday, with the parade in downtown Salt Lake City.
September
The Utah State FairAt the Utah State Fairpark on North Temple.
November and December
Temple Square lights and the downtown holiday season
Schools and services
Five districts, three campuses, and the biggest hospitals in the Intermountain West
School districts
Five districts serve the county: Salt Lake City, Granite, Jordan, Canyons, Murray. Salt Lake City and Murray each run their own; Granite covers the center of the valley from South Salt Lake and Millcreek across to West Valley City, Kearns, Magna, and Taylorsville; Canyons covers the east bench and south end from Cottonwood Heights through Sandy and Draper; and Jordan covers the southwest, West Jordan, South Jordan, Riverton, Herriman, and Bluffdale. The city guide for any town names its district. I do not rate schools, here or anywhere on this site: I state the district, link the facts, and leave the judgment to you and the district's own published data.
| District | Where it runs | Enrollment |
|---|---|---|
| Salt Lake City School District | Salt Lake City proper | ~17,700 students |
| Granite School District | The center of the valley: South Salt Lake, Millcreek, Holladay, West Valley City, Kearns, Magna, Taylorsville | ~59,000 students |
| Jordan School District | The southwest valley: West Jordan, South Jordan, Riverton, Herriman, Bluffdale | ~55,800 students |
| Canyons School District | The east bench and south end: Cottonwood Heights, Sandy, Draper, Midvale | ~32,000 students |
| Murray City School District | Murray | ~5,400 students |
Enrollment: Utah State Board of Education, latest published fall count, rounded. Facts and official links only; I do not rate schools.
Colleges and hospitals
University of Utah, Salt Lake Community College, Westminster University. The University of Utah is the state's flagship and its largest research institution, sitting on the east bench above downtown with its own TRAX line and its own hospital system; Salt Lake Community College spreads across the valley with its main campus in Taylorsville; and Westminster University is the small private campus in Sugar House. For medical care this county is the center of the whole region: Intermountain Medical Center, University of Utah Hospital, Primary Children's, St. Mark's, LDS Hospital, Riverton, Alta View, Jordan Valley, Lone Peak. Whatever specialist a family ends up needing, there is a good chance the specialist is in this county no matter which county they live in, and that is one of the quiet reasons the county holds its value.
The county itself runs the library system, the health department, the recorder and assessor, and a park system that includes the valley's big regional parks and the Jordan River Parkway, which runs the full length of the county. Largest employers, by the state's list: Intermountain Health, University of Utah, State of Utah, Delta Air Lines, Zions Bancorporation, with the airport, the hospitals, and the school districts close behind.
Guides for this move
- Relocating to Utah, an orientation
- First-time buyers in Utah
- Moving up to your next homeFrom the valley floor to the bench, the county's classic second move.
- Downsizing in UtahOften a move toward the rail line and the hospitals, which is to say toward this county.
- Retiring to the Wasatch Front
Moving here: the county offices
The offices and providers a new Salt Lake County homeowner actually contacts, each linked at its official site.
- County government
- Salt Lake CountyDepartments, districts, and county services.
- Assessor
- Salt Lake County AssessorProperty values, the primary residence exemption, and parcel lookup.
- Recorder
- Salt Lake County RecorderDeeds and ownership records.
- Treasurer
- Salt Lake County TreasurerProperty tax billing and payment.
- Driver license and DMV
- Utah DMV office locationsNew residents register vehicles here, and several offices sit in the valley.
- Voter registration
- Salt Lake County ClerkElections and voter registration.
- Power
- Rocky Mountain PowerElectric utility for most of the valley; Murray runs its own city power.
- Natural gas
- Enbridge Gas UtahThe former Dominion Energy Utah.
- Water
- City and district systemsMost cities run their own water; Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District wholesales to much of the south valley.
Compare it
Salt Lake 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 Salt Lake County and any of the other 19, and see the same table side by side.
Build a matchupCity vs city
Compare the county's cities
Sandy vs Draper, West Jordan vs South Jordan, Murray vs Taylorsville, and every other pairing of the valley's big towns.
Compare citiesAlready own here?
What a Salt Lake County home is worth
A value built by hand from real valley sales, not an algorithm, and a path to get featured where buyers are already looking.
Start the valuationCommon questions
Salt Lake County, answered
What cities are in Salt Lake County?
Eighteen with full guides on this site, largest first: Salt Lake City, West Valley City, West Jordan, Sandy, South Jordan, Millcreek, Taylorsville, Herriman, Draper, Murray, Riverton, Midvale, Cottonwood Heights, Kearns, Magna, Holladay, South Salt Lake, and Bluffdale. Salt Lake City is the seat and the largest, with about a sixth of the county's people; the rest run together down the valley without a gap between them.
Where are the least expensive homes in Salt Lake County?
West of I-15 and on the valley floor: West Valley City, Kearns, Magna, Taylorsville, and the west half of West Jordan carry the county's lowest city medians, and the north end of Salt Lake City and older parts of Murray and Midvale sit close to them. The downside is age and distance from the bench. The price pages for each of those cities show what is actually listed under $500,000 today.
Is Salt Lake County still growing?
Slowly. The Census Bureau puts the county at 1,220,916 in July 2025, +3.0% above the 2020 count, while Utah County next door grew five times as fast. The valley is essentially full, so growth now means towers downtown, townhomes along the rail lines, and the last open ground in Herriman and Daybreak. For a buyer that makes the market steady rather than fast, and it makes the older home on a mature lot the normal purchase.
Which side of the valley should I look at, east or west?
The east bench under the Wasatch has the canyons, the views, the older trees, and the higher prices; the west side has the newer subdivisions, the bigger lots for the money, and the longer drive to the ski canyons. The middle of the valley, along I-15 and the TRAX lines, is where the rail makes a one-car household realistic. If elevation matters to you, for cooler nights or for sitting above the winter inversion, the bench on either side beats the valley floor, and the county's mountain-view and single-story pages sort by exactly that.
What is there to do in Salt Lake County on a weekend?
More than anywhere else in Utah, in two directions at once. Downtown Salt Lake holds the state's venues, museums, and restaurant blocks, and Big and Little Cottonwood canyons hold four ski areas and the busiest trailheads in the state, twenty minutes from the bench. Every one of the county's eighteen towns has its own ranked things-to-do list on The Local, from Salt Lake City's twelve to the honest five or six in the smaller suburbs, and this page lists all of them.
Next step
Looking at the valley? Let's narrow it to a street
Tell me where the job is, what the budget looks like, and whether the canyons or the rail matter more. I will give you the honest read on which part of the county fits, and connect you with the partner agent who works that part of the valley 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.