Door County, Wisconsin

Door County is a county in Wisconsin, United States, on the Door Peninsula, about 45 miles
northeast of Green Bay. It had a population of 30,066 at the 2020 census, an estimated 30,445 by
2024, and covers 2,370 square miles (6,100 km2) centred near 45°01′N 87°01′W.

Sturgeon Bay is the county seat and the county’s only city; its postal code is 54235. The
county holds 1 city, 4 incorporated villages and roughly 25 unincorporated communities across 14
towns, and it runs on Central Time. Its FIPS code is 55029.

Towns & Villages in Door County

Door County has 30 named places on record: 1 city, 4 incorporated villages, 1 census-designated
place and roughly 24 unincorporated communities with no local government of their own. Wisconsin’s
“towns” are civil townships, listed separately below; the Township column here names the
township each unincorporated place sits inside. Incorporated places (the city and the four
villages) are detached from any township, so that column reads — for them. CDP stands for
census-designated place; Unincorp. covers named crossroads and rural communities with no formal
boundary.

Namur straddles the Union–Brussels town line; sources disagree on which township holds it,
so both are listed. Rosiere also crosses a county line — most of its area sits in Door
County’s Town of Brussels, but part extends south into Kewaunee County. Carnot, Maplewood and
Peninsula Center appear on the county’s own list of named communities, but no source specifies
which of the 14 towns holds each one, so that cell is left blank rather than guessed.

Townships

Wisconsin calls its civil townships “towns,” and Door County has 14 of them, covering
every acre outside the city and the four villages. Sorted by population, largest first:

The Town of Sturgeon Bay surrounds the city on three sides but has no named settlement of its
own beyond scattered rural addresses.

ZIP Codes

• 54235 — Sturgeon Bay
• 54234 — Sister Bay
• 54202 — Baileys Harbor
• 54209 — Egg Harbor
• 54211 — Ephraim
• 54212 — Fish Creek
• 54213 — Forestville
• 54210 — Ellison Bay (also serves nearby Gills Rock)
• 54204 — Brussels
• 54246 — Washington Island (covers both Detroit Harbor and Washington)
• 54226 — Maplewood (a post-office-box-only ZIP, no delivery route)

Door County has 11 ZIP codes for its roughly 30 named places; nine deliver mail and two,
including Maplewood, are box-only. Smaller communities such as Northport, North Bay, Idlewild
and Carlsville have no ZIP of their own and are served under the nearest post-office town’s code.

Geography

Door County occupies the Door Peninsula, the finger of land separating Green Bay from Lake
Michigan, plus Washington Island and dozens of smaller islands off its northern tip. Of the
county’s 2,370 square miles, only 482 are land; the remaining 1,888 square miles, 80 percent of
the total, are open water — the highest water share of any Wisconsin county. Bedrock is
Niagara Escarpment dolomite, the same limestone ridge that forms Niagara Falls, and it surfaces in
bluffs along the Green Bay shore at Peninsula State Park and in the sea caves of Cave Point County
Park.

Kewaunee County borders Door directly to the south, the only county Door touches by land. Across
the waters of Green Bay to the west lie Brown, Oconto and Marinette counties, and across Lake
Michigan to the east lie counties in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and Lower Peninsula. Kewaunee County, Brown County, Oconto County and Marinette County all share water borders with Door.

Demographics

Door County had a population of 30,066 at the 2020 census, and the latest estimate puts the
county near 30,445 residents. Sturgeon Bay and Sister Bay are the two largest incorporated places.
Median household income runs about $74,795, close to Wisconsin’s statewide 2023 ACS figure of
$74,631. Population density works out to roughly 62 people per square mile of land, low even by
rural Wisconsin standards, reflecting how much of the county is water rather than land.

Economy & Local Life

Manufacturing employs the most workers in the county, about 2,171 people, followed by retail
trade at 1,576 and accommodation and food services at 1,440. Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding, on the
Sturgeon Bay waterfront, is the county’s largest single employer and builds vessels for the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers and commercial shipping lines, a direct descendant of the shipyards that
earned the city its “Shipbuilding Capital of the Midwest” nickname. Tourism is the dominant
sector by revenue, contributing more than $600 million a year as of 2023, drawn by the county’s
cherry and apple orchards, its 300-plus miles of shoreline, and five state parks including
Peninsula State Park. The county’s biggest annual event is the Door County Fair, held each
August in Sturgeon Bay, and Ephraim’s Fyr Bal midsummer bonfire festival each June also draws
large crowds.

History

Wisconsin’s territorial legislature created Door County in 1851, and it was organized as a
functioning county government in 1861. The name comes from Porte des Morts, French for
“Death’s Door,” the strait between the peninsula’s tip and Washington Island where early
French explorers recorded accounts of a disastrous Ho-Chunk raiding party lost in a storm; the
strait went on to claim dozens of shipwrecks over the following century. Increase Claflin, who
settled near present-day Fish Creek in 1834, is generally credited as the county’s first
non-Native settler.

Moravian settlers founded Ephraim in 1853 after a religious dispute split their congregation.
Belgian Walloon immigrants settled the county’s southern towns, Brussels, Union and Gardner among
them, starting in the 1850s, and their roadside votive chapels still stand there. On 8 October
1871, the same night as the Great Chicago Fire, wind-driven wildfire linked to the Peshtigo Fire
swept the settlement of Williamsonville in what is now the Town of Brussels, killing 59 people in
one night; the site is preserved as Tornado Memorial County Park. Roughly 128 county residents
died in that fire season overall.

Getting There

No interstate highway crosses Door County. Wisconsin Highway 42 runs up the peninsula’s Green
Bay side and Wisconsin Highway 57 runs up the Lake Michigan side, meeting at Sturgeon Bay.

• Green Bay — about 45 miles southwest
• Manitowoc — about 40 miles south
• Sister Bay — about 40 miles north of Sturgeon Bay
• Washington Island — a 30-minute car ferry from Northport, at the peninsula’s tip

Austin Straubel International Airport in Green Bay, roughly 45 miles southwest of Sturgeon Bay,
is the nearest major commercial airport. Cherryland Airport, on Sturgeon Bay’s west side, handles
general aviation. Door County has no Amtrak service; the nearest station is in Milwaukee, well
over 150 miles south.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Door County located?
It occupies the Door Peninsula in northeastern Wisconsin, between Green Bay and Lake Michigan,
about 45 miles northeast of Green Bay, bordered on land only by Kewaunee County.

What is the population of Door County?
30,066 at the 2020 census, with a 2024 estimate near 30,445.

How big is Door County?
2,370 square miles (6,100 km2) in total, but only 482 square miles are land — 80 percent of
the county is water.

What is the county seat of Door County?
Sturgeon Bay is the county seat and the county’s only incorporated city.

How many towns and villages are in Door County?
One city (Sturgeon Bay), four incorporated villages (Egg Harbor, Ephraim, Forestville and Sister
Bay), and roughly 25 unincorporated communities and one CDP spread across the county’s 14
townships.

What ZIP codes does Door County use?
54235 for Sturgeon Bay, 54234 for Sister Bay, 54202 for Baileys Harbor, 54209 for Egg Harbor,
54211 for Ephraim, 54212 for Fish Creek, 54213 for Forestville, 54210 for Ellison Bay and Gills
Rock, 54204 for Brussels, and 54246 for Washington Island.

What is Door County known for?
Its cherry and apple orchards, more than 300 miles of Green Bay and Lake Michigan shoreline, five
state parks, and the Death’s Door strait that gave the county its name.

More counties in this state: Towns and villages in Wisconsin.