Benton County is a county in Washington, United States, along the Tri-Cities stretch of the Columbia River, in the south-central part of the state. It had a population of 206,873 at the 2020 census and covers 1,760 square miles (4,600 km2) centred near 46\u00b015\u2032N 119\u00b030\u2032W.<\/p>\n
Prosser is the county seat, and its postal code is 99350. The county has five incorporated cities, one census-designated place, and dozens of small unincorporated communities, several of them former railway sidings. Benton County is in the Pacific time zone.<\/p>\n
Benton County’s five cities — Kennewick, Richland, West Richland, Prosser and Benton City — hold the great majority of the population; the rest of the county’s places are the census-designated place of Finley and roughly forty unincorporated communities, many of them former Northern Pacific Railway sidings strung along the Horse Heaven Hills grade between Kennewick and the Hanford Site that never grew past a name on a map. Type legend: City · seat = county seat, City = incorporated city, CDP = census-designated place, Unincorp. = unincorporated community.<\/p>\n
| Place<\/th>\n | Type<\/th>\n | Pop.<\/th>\n | ZIP<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kennewick<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | 83,921<\/td>\n | 99336, 99337, 99338<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Richland<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | 60,560<\/td>\n | 99352, 99354<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| West Richland<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | 99353<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Prosser<\/td>\n | City · seat<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | 99350<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Benton City<\/td>\n | City<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | 99320<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Finley<\/td>\n | CDP<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | 99337<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Apricot<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Audrey<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Badger<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Berrian<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Bettie<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Chaffee<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| East White Bluffs<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Edna<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Ethel<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Geneva Junction<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Gibbon<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Ginger<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Hanford<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Hedges<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Helen<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Highland<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Horse Heaven<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Island View<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Kiona<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | 99320<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| May Junction<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Nancy<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| North McNary<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| North Prosser<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | 99350<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Paterson<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | 99345<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Pearl<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Pierce<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Plymouth<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | 99346<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Richland Junction<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Richland Y<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Ruby<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Ruth<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| South Highlands<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Susie<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Vista<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Wahluke<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| West Highlands<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Whitcomb<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| White Bluffs<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Whitstran<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | 99350<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Willa<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Yellepit<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n Hanford and White Bluffs (and its riverside offshoot, East White Bluffs) are not modern communities: both were farm towns on the Columbia River bank that the federal government emptied in 1943 to build the Hanford Site for the Manhattan Project, and their sites now sit inside the site’s restricted boundary. Geneva Junction, May Junction, Richland Junction and Richland Y were separate stops on the old Northern Pacific and Union Pacific branch lines serving Hanford and Richland, not duplicate names for the same place.<\/p>\n ZIP Codes<\/h2>\nMost of the county’s unincorporated rail sidings and former townsites have no ZIP code of their own and are served by the nearest post office town’s code above.<\/p>\n Geography<\/h2>\nThe Columbia River traces most of Benton County’s northern, eastern and southern edge, curving around the county from the Hanford Reach in the north to the Tri-Cities confluence with the Snake and Yakima rivers in the east. The Yakima River crosses the county from west to east through Kennewick, Richland and Benton City. South of the rivers, the land rises into the dry, wheat- and grape-covered Horse Heaven Hills; Rattlesnake Mountain, on the county’s northwestern edge inside the Hanford Site, is the highest point. The Hanford Reach National Monument covers much of the county’s shrub-steppe north of Richland.<\/p>\n Benton County borders Grant County<\/a> to the north (across the Columbia River), Franklin County<\/a> to the east (also across the Columbia), Walla Walla County<\/a> to the southeast, Umatilla County and Morrow County in Oregon to the south (across the Columbia), Klickitat County<\/a> to the southwest, and Yakima County<\/a> to the west.<\/p>\n Benton County had 206,873 residents at the 2020 census, up from 175,177 in 2010. Kennewick, with 83,921 people, and Richland, with 60,560, together hold about 70 percent of the county’s population; the rest is split among the smaller cities and the rural Horse Heaven Hills and lower Yakima Valley. Statewide, the 2023 American Community Survey put the Washington median of $94,605 for household income; incomes inside Benton County vary widely between the Tri-Cities’ technical and government workforce and the surrounding farm country. Population density across the county’s 1,700 square miles of land is roughly 122 people per square mile, concentrated almost entirely in the Tri-Cities urban area.<\/p>\n The Hanford Site, the former plutonium-production complex now under long-term federal cleanup, is Benton County’s largest single employment driver, alongside the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland. Agriculture remains central outside the Tri-Cities: the Horse Heaven Hills and Yakima Valley around Prosser, Benton City and Kiona grow wine grapes, orchard fruit, hops and row crops, and the county contains part of the Red Mountain American Viticultural Area, one of Washington’s most concentrated premium wine-grape districts. Prosser hosts Washington State University’s Irrigated Agriculture Research and Extension Center. The Benton Franklin Fair & Rodeo, held each August in Kennewick, is the county’s largest annual public event.<\/p>\n The Washington territorial and state legislature created Benton County on March 8, 1905, carving it out of larger versions of Klickitat and Yakima counties and naming it for Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton, an early advocate of westward expansion. Irrigation projects built along the Yakima River in the early 1900s turned sagebrush land around Kennewick, Richland and Prosser into orchard and farm country. That pattern changed abruptly in 1943, when the federal government seized roughly 670 square miles along the Columbia River’s Hanford Reach for the Manhattan Project, evicting the farm towns of Hanford and White Bluffs to build the plutonium-production reactors that supplied the world’s first nuclear weapons; Richland grew almost overnight as the project’s company town. Grape growing on Red Mountain, near Benton City, began in the 1970s and the area was recognized as its own AVA in 2001.<\/p>\n Interstate 82 and U.S. Route 395 cross the Tri-Cities area through Kennewick and Richland, and Washington State Route 240 links Richland to Kennewick and the Hanford Site’s public entrance. Washington State Route 224 runs along the Yakima River through Benton City.<\/p>\n The Tri-Cities Airport (PSC), across the Columbia River in Pasco, is the nearest commercial airport, with regional service to Seattle, Portland, Denver, Salt Lake City and Minneapolis.<\/p>\n Where is Benton County, Washington?<\/strong> What is the population of Benton County?<\/strong> How big is Benton County?<\/strong> What is the county seat of Benton County?<\/strong> How many towns are in Benton County?<\/strong> What ZIP codes are in Benton County?<\/strong> |