Walworth County is a

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

located in the U.S. state of

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

. As of the 2020 census, the population was 106,478. Its

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

is Elkhorn. The county was created in 1836 from Wisconsin Territory and organized in 1839. It is named for Reuben H. Walworth. Walworth County comprises the

Whitewater Whitewater forms in the context of rapids, in particular, when a river's Stream gradient, gradient changes enough to generate so much turbulence that air is trapped within the water. This forms an unstable current that foam, froths, making t ...

-Elkhorn, WI Micropolitan Statistical Area and is included in the

Milwaukee Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...

- Racine- Waukesha, WI Combined Statistical Area. The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater is located in Walworth County. Walworth County features several major tourist destinations:

Lake Geneva Lake Geneva is a deep lake on the north side of the Alps, shared between Switzerland and France. It is one of the List of largest lakes of Europe, largest lakes in Western Europe and the largest on the course of the Rhône. Sixty percent () ...

, Alpine Valley Resort, and Alpine Valley Music Theatre. Tourism is a large contributor to Walworth County's economy. It is Wisconsin's fifteenth largest county in population, but it is the sixth largest in terms of economic impact from tourism (nearly $1 billion in 2023).

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (3.7%) is water.

Transportation

Major highways

* Interstate 43 * U.S. Highway 12 * U.S. Highway 14 * Highway 11 (Wisconsin) * Highway 20 (Wisconsin) * Highway 36 (Wisconsin) * Highway 50 (Wisconsin) * Highway 59 (Wisconsin) * Highway 67 (Wisconsin) * Highway 83 (Wisconsin) * Highway 89 (Wisconsin) * Highway 120 (Wisconsin)

Railroads

* Canadian National *

East Troy Electric Railroad The East Troy Electric Railroad is an interurban heritage railroad owned and operated by the East Troy Railroad Museum. Passenger excursions run on a stretch of track from East Troy to Mukwonago, Wisconsin. History The line dates back t ...

Union Pacific The Union Pacific Railroad is a Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United States after BNSF, ...

Wisconsin and Southern Railroad The Wisconsin and Southern Railroad is a Class II regional railroad in Southern Wisconsin and Northeastern Illinois currently operated by Watco. It operates former Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (Milwaukee Road) and ...

Buses

Airport

East Troy Municipal Airport , serves the county and surrounding communities

Adjacent counties

* Waukesha County (northeast) * Racine County (east) * Kenosha County (east) *

McHenry County, Illinois McHenry County is a County (United States), county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2020 United States census, 2020 Census, it had a population of 310,229, making it the sixth-most populous county in Illinois. Its count ...

(southeast) * Boone County, Illinois (southwest) * Rock County (west) * Jefferson County (northwest)

Demographics

2020 census

As of the census of 2020, the population was 106,478. The

population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...

was . There were 53,146 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the county was 85.4%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 1.1%

Black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 1.0% Asian, 0.4% Native American, 4.6% from other races, and 7.4% from two or more races. Ethnically, the population was 11.8%

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

or Latino of any race.

2000 census

At the 2000 census there were 93,759 people, 34,522 households, and 23,267 families in the county. The population density was . There were 43,783 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the county was 94.49% White, 0.84% Black or African American, 0.23% Native American, 0.65% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 2.62% from other races, and 1.14% from two or more races. 6.54% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. Of the 34,522 households 31.80% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 55.40% were married couples living together, 8.20% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.60% were non-families. 24.70% of households were one person and 9.20% were one person aged 65 or older. The average household size was 2.57 and the average family size was 3.07. The age distribution was 24.20% under the age of 18, 13.80% from 18 to 24, 27.60% from 25 to 44, 21.80% from 45 to 64, and 12.70% 65 or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females there were 98.90 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 97.20 males. In 2017, there were 918 births, giving a general fertility rate of 48.8 births per 1000 women aged 15–44, the sixth lowest rate out of all 72 Wisconsin counties.

Communities

Cities

* Burlington (mostly in Racine County) * Delavan Delavan Wisconsin 9

* Elkhorn (county seat) *

(partly in Jefferson County)

Villages

* Bloomfield * Darien * East Troy * Fontana-on-Geneva Lake * Genoa City (partly in Kenosha County) * Mukwonago (mostly in Waukesha County) *

Sharon Sharon ( 'plain'), also spelled Saron, is a given name as well as a Hebrew name. In Anglosphere, English-speaking areas, Sharon is now predominantly a feminine given name, but historically it was also used as a masculine given name. In Israel, ...

Walworth Walworth ( ) is a district of South London, England, within the London Borough of Southwark. It adjoins Camberwell to the south and Elephant and Castle to the north, and is south-east of Charing Cross. Major streets in Walworth include the ...

* Williams Bay

Towns

* Bloomfield * Darien * Delavan * East Troy *

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

* Lafayette * La Grange * Linn *

Lyons Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

* Richmond *

* Spring Prairie * Sugar Creek *

Troy Troy (/; ; ) or Ilion (; ) was an ancient city located in present-day Hisarlik, Turkey. It is best known as the setting for the Greek mythology, Greek myth of the Trojan War. The archaeological site is open to the public as a tourist destina ...

Census-designated places

* Allen's Grove * Como * Delavan Lake * Lake Ivanhoe * Lake Lorraine * Lauderdale Lakes *

* Potter Lake * Springfield Turtle Lake floating

* Turtle Lake

Unincorporated communities

* Abells Corners * Adams * Bardwell * Big Foot Prairie (partial) * Bowers * East Delavan * Fairfield (partial) *

Inlet An inlet is a typically long and narrow indentation of a shoreline such as a small arm, cove, bay, sound, fjord, lagoon or marsh, that leads to an enclosed larger body of water such as a lake, estuary, gulf or marginal sea. Overview In ...

* Heart Prairie * Hilburn * Honey Creek (partial) * Honey Lake (partial) * La Grange * Lake Beulah *

Lake Como Lake Como ( , ) also known as Lario, is a lake of glacial origin in Lombardy, Italy. It has an area of , making it the third-largest lake in Italy, after Lake Garda and Lake Maggiore. At over deep, it is one of the deepest lakes in Europe. ...

* Lake Lawn *

Lauderdale Lauderdale is the valley of the Leader Water (a tributary of the River Tweed, Tweed) in the Scottish Borders. It contains the town of Lauder, as well as Earlston. The valley is traversed from end to end by the A68 road, A68 trunk road, which run ...

* Lauderdale Shores * Linton * Little Prairie * Millard * North Bloomfield * Pell Lake * Powers Lake * Richmond * Spring Prairie * Tibbets *

* Troy Center * Voree * Zenda

Ghost towns

* Army Lake * Mayhews

Politics

Owing to its

Yankee The term ''Yankee'' and its contracted form ''Yank'' have several interrelated meanings, all referring to people from the United States. Their various meanings depend on the context, and may refer to New Englanders, the Northeastern United Stat ...

heritage, which contrasts with the

German-American German Americans (, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. According to the United States Census Bureau's figures from 2022, German Americans make up roughly 41 million people in the US, which is approximately 12% of the pop ...

or Scandinavian-American character of most of Wisconsin, Walworth County was initially a stronghold of the

Free Soil Party The Free Soil Party, also called the Free Democratic Party or the Free Democracy, was a political party in the United States from 1848 to 1854, when it merged into the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party. The party was focused o ...

.Fowler, Robert Booth; ''Wisconsin Votes: An Electoral History, Volume 3'', p. 11 It voted for

Martin van Buren Martin Van Buren ( ; ; December 5, 1782 – July 24, 1862) was the eighth president of the United States, serving from 1837 to 1841. A primary founder of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served as Attorney General o ...

and John P. Hale in Wisconsin's first two presidential elections,Beckwith, Albert Clayton; ''History of Walworth County, Wisconsin'' pp. 98-99 Published 1912 by B.F. Bowen and Company, Indianapolis, Indiana and its opposition to the spread of slavery led to its population voting Republican in subsequent elections, even resisting the appeal of Wisconsin native Robert La Follette when he carried the state in 1924 as a Progressive.See Phillips, Kevin P.; ''The Emerging Republican Majority'', pp. 441-442 Walworth County remains strongly Republican. The only Democrat to carry the county was

Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was the 28th president of the United States, serving from 1913 to 1921. He was the only History of the Democratic Party (United States), Democrat to serve as president during the Prog ...

in 1912, who won 36 percent of the vote. Even with the GOP mortally divided between President

William Howard Taft William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857March 8, 1930) served as the 27th president of the United States from 1909 to 1913 and the tenth chief justice of the United States from 1921 to 1930. He is the only person to have held both offices. ...

and

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), also known as Teddy or T.R., was the 26th president of the United States, serving from 1901 to 1909. Roosevelt previously was involved in New York (state), New York politics, incl ...

, Wilson only won the county by 29 votes. The best Democratic showings since then have been by

Lyndon Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. He became president after assassination of John F. Kennedy, the assassination of John F. Ken ...

in 1964 and

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

in 2008, both of whom received around 48 percent.

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...

and

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...

are the only other Democrats since Wilson to cross the 40 percent mark, though

Joe Biden Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who was the 46th president of the United States from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice p ...

came very close in 2020.

Education

School districts include: - ext list/ref> K-12: * Burlington Area School District * Clinton Community School District * Delavan-Darien School District * East Troy Community School District * Elkhorn Area School District * Mukwonago School District * Palmyra-Eagle Area School District * Whitewater School District * Williams Bay School District Secondary: * Big Foot Union High School District * Lake Geneva-Genoa City Union High School District Elementary: * Fontana Joint No. 8 School District * Geneva Joint No. 4 School District * Genoa City Joint No. 2 School District * Lake Geneva Joint No. 1 School District * Linn Joint No. 4 School District * Linn Joint No. 6 School District * Sharon Joint No. 11 School District * Walworth Joint No. 1 School District Wisconsin School for the Deaf, a state-operated school, is in the county.

References

External links

Walworth County

Walworth County map
from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation
Travel Guide for Lake Geneva and Walworth County, WI

Combination Atlas Map, 1873
{{authority control 1839 establishments in Wisconsin Territory Populated places established in 1839