Saginaw County, Michigan

Saginaw County is a county in Michigan, United States, about 90 miles northwest of Detroit. It had a population of 190,124 at the 2020 census, an estimated 188,665 by 2024, and covers 816 square miles (2,110 km2) centred near 43°20′N 84°03′W.

Saginaw is the county seat and the county’s largest city; its postal code is 48601. The county holds 3 cities, 6 incorporated villages and 7 census-designated places across 27 townships, and it runs on Eastern Time. Its FIPS code is 26145.

Towns & Villages in Saginaw County

Saginaw County has 16 places with their own recorded 2020 census population: 3 cities, 6 villages and 7 census-designated places (CDPs), which are unincorporated communities the Census Bureau tracks separately because of their size. CDP stands for census designated place; none of the seven listed below has its own municipal government.

Reese is the one confusable entry. Its village limits sit almost entirely in Tuscola County’s Denmark Township; only a small edge, on the Saginaw County side, reaches into Blumfield Township. Its population of 1,261 is overwhelmingly Tuscola County’s, not Saginaw County’s, even though the village appears on Saginaw County’s own community list.

Another 35 named crossroads and rural hamlets have no municipal government and no separate census count of their own: Alicia, Blumfield Corners, Brady Center, Brant, Chapin, Clausedale, Crow Island, Dice, Fenmore, Fergus, Fordney, Fosters, Frankentrost, Frost, Galloway, Garfield, Gera, Groveton, Indiantown, Iva, Kochville, Lakefield, Lawndale, Layton Corners, Luce, Marion Springs, Morseville, Nelson, Orr, Paines, Parshallburg, Roosevelt, Shattuckville, Swan Creek and Taymouth. Several mobile-home parks that appeared on older lists of Saginaw County places — Bel-Air, Birchwood Farms, Falconview Estates and similar — are private developments, not census places, and are left off this list.

Townships

Michigan is one of the states that still governs rural land through civil townships. Saginaw County has 27 of them — 24 civil townships and 3 charter townships (Saginaw, Bridgeport and Buena Vista), which carry slightly broader home-rule powers. Twelve have a separately reported 2020 population; the rest are sparsely settled and the Census Bureau folds their few residents into the county total without a township-level breakout in the sources checked for this page.

The other 15 — Albee, Birch Run, Blumfield, Brady, Brant, Chapin, Fremont, James, Jonesfield, Lakefield, Maple Grove, Marion, Spaulding, St. Charles and Zilwaukee townships — carry the villages, CDPs and hamlets already listed above but have no separately tabulated 2020 population in the sources checked here.

ZIP Codes

• 48601 — Saginaw (also covers Buena Vista and Robin Glen-Indiantown)
• 48602, 48603, 48604, 48605, 48606, 48607, 48608, 48609, 48638, 48663 — the rest of the Saginaw and Saginaw Township ZIP range
• 48604 — also used for Zilwaukee and Carrollton Township addresses
• 48609 — also covers Shields and Thomas Township
• 48622 — Freeland alternate
• 48623 — Freeland, near MBS International Airport
• 48626 — Hemlock, Richland Township
• 48616 — Chesaning
• 48655 — St. Charles
• 48734 — Frankenmuth
• 48415 — Birch Run
• 48417 — Burt, Taymouth Township
• 48637 — Merrill
• 48649 — Oakley
• 48722 — Bridgeport
• 48724 — Carrollton
• 48757 — Reese, though most of that ZIP’s territory lies in Tuscola County

Most of the 35 unlisted hamlets receive mail under a neighboring town’s ZIP; none has a dedicated post office of its own left today.

Geography

Saginaw County sits at the base of Michigan’s Thumb region, on flat lake-plain land left behind by glacial Lake Saginaw. Of its 816 square miles, 800 are land and 16 are water, about 1.9 percent — low for mid-Michigan, since the county has no large natural lake. The Saginaw River, formed where the Tittabawassee, Shiawassee, Flint and Cass rivers converge near the city of Saginaw, is the county’s dominant waterway and drains north into Saginaw Bay on Lake Huron. The Tittabawassee River crosses the county’s northwest corner through Tittabawassee Township and Freeland.

Bay County lies to the north, Midland County to the northwest, Tuscola County to the east, Gratiot County to the west, Genesee County to the southeast, Shiawassee County to the south, and Clinton County to the southwest. Bay County, Midland County, Tuscola County, Gratiot County, Shiawassee County and Clinton County all have their own pages on this site; Genesee County does not.

Demographics

Saginaw County had a population of 190,124 at the 2020 census, a 5.0 percent drop from 2010, and the latest estimate puts the county near 188,665 residents in 2024. The city of Saginaw (44,202) and Saginaw Charter Township (41,679) are by far the two largest communities, together holding roughly 45 percent of the county’s population, even though they are separate governments. Median household income runs $60,622, below Michigan’s statewide figure of $69,183. Population density works out to about 238 people per square mile of land, concentrated heavily around the city and the townships that ring it.

Economy & Local Life

Health care and social assistance employs the most workers in the county, about 14,021 people, followed closely by manufacturing at 13,478 and retail trade at 9,719. Nexteer Automotive, which grew out of the old Saginaw Steering Gear plant and now employs about 5,200 people, is the county’s largest private employer and the clearest link to Saginaw’s century-old automotive history. Covenant HealthCare (4,512 employees) and St. Mary’s of Michigan (1,800) anchor the health care sector from their Saginaw campuses, and Morley Companies, a business-services firm, employs another 1,750. Saginaw Valley State University, in Kochville Township, is the county’s largest public institution outside the hospital systems. The county’s biggest annual event is Frankenmuth’s Bavarian Festival each June, and its Oktoberfest each September draws crowds from across the state to a city of fewer than 5,000 residents.

History

Michigan’s territorial government authorized Saginaw County on September 10, 1822, and it was fully organized on February 9, 1835. The name most likely comes from Ojibwe words meaning “place of the outlet” — sag, an opening, and ong, place of — though an older theory ties it to Sace-nong, meaning Sauk land, after the Sauk people once living there. Louis Campau built a fur-trading post at the site of the future city of Saginaw in 1816, and Saginaw grew through the 19th century as one of the country’s leading lumber-milling towns before timber ran out.

German Lutheran missionaries founded Frankenmuth in 1845 to serve and convert the local Ojibwe community; the town instead became one of the most thoroughly German communities in the Midwest and still markets itself on that heritage. Saginaw’s economy turned to automobiles in 1906, when the Jackson-Church-Wilcox Company began building steering gear; Buick, and then General Motors, bought the operation in 1909 and ran it as Saginaw Steering Gear for a century before Nexteer took it over in 2010. In May 2020, failures of the Edenville and Sanford dams upstream on the Tittabawassee River sent floodwater downstream into Saginaw County, forcing evacuations in Saginaw Township and other low-lying areas along the river.

Getting There

Interstate 75 runs the length of the county on its eastern side, and I-675 loops through downtown Saginaw as a business route. US 10 crosses the northwest corner near Freeland, and M-13, M-46, M-52, M-57 and M-83 provide the main state-highway connections between the county’s towns.

• Bay City — about 15 miles north
• Midland — about 20 miles northwest
• Flint — about 35 miles southeast
• Lansing — about 60 miles southwest

MBS International Airport, in Freeland, sits inside the county itself and offers commercial flights serving Saginaw, Bay City and Midland together. Amtrak’s Blue Water line does not reach Saginaw County; the nearest station is Durand Union Station, about 30 miles south of the city of Saginaw.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Saginaw County located?
It sits at the base of Michigan’s Thumb region, about 90 miles northwest of Detroit, bordered by Bay, Midland, Tuscola, Gratiot, Genesee, Shiawassee and Clinton counties.

What is the population of Saginaw County?
190,124 at the 2020 census, with a 2024 estimate near 188,665.

How big is Saginaw County?
816 square miles (2,110 km2), of which 800 square miles are land.

What is the county seat of Saginaw County?
Saginaw is the county seat and the county’s largest city.

How many towns and villages are in Saginaw County?
Three cities — Saginaw, Frankenmuth and Zilwaukee — six villages, and seven census-designated places, spread across 27 townships.

What ZIP codes does Saginaw County use?
48601 through 48609, 48638 and 48663 for Saginaw and its townships, plus separate codes for each outlying village: 48734 Frankenmuth, 48415 Birch Run, 48616 Chesaning, 48655 St. Charles, 48637 Merrill and 48649 Oakley.

What is Saginaw County known for?
Frankenmuth’s Bavarian Festival and Oktoberfest, Nexteer Automotive’s steering-gear plant descended from the century-old Saginaw Steering Gear works, and the 2020 dam-failure flooding along the Tittabawassee River.

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