Leelanau County is Michigan’s most married at 62.4% of adults; Isabella is least married at 36.9%

Picture a summer evening in Leelanau County. A couple in their sixties walks a dog along a Lake Michigan beach near Northport, waving to neighbors they have known for twenty years. Now picture a fall afternoon in Mount Pleasant, where the sidewalks are full of Central Michigan students. Both are typical scenes in their counties, and they explain most of what this ranking shows.

Leelanau County leads at 62.4% married; Isabella is lowest at 36.9%

Comparing marriage by county, Michigan’s map has a clear leader. Ranked by the share of residents 15 and older who are currently married, Leelanau County comes first at 62.4%, followed by Antrim (60.8%), Presque Isle (60.2%), Keweenaw (59.6%) and Alcona (59.2%). Isabella County is last at 36.9%, with Wayne (38.5%) and Ingham (39.8%) just above it.

The statewide figure is 47.6%, and 66 of 83 counties are above it. As with divorce, that is not a contradiction: the most populous counties, especially Wayne, sit below the state number and carry the most weight in the statewide average.

Three Michigan landscapes explain most of the ranking

Northern lake and retirement counties

Most of the top ten are small counties in the northern Lower Peninsula and the Upper Peninsula: Leelanau, Antrim, Presque Isle, Alcona, Charlevoix, Emmet and Gladwin, plus Keweenaw and Ontonagon in the western U.P. Their populations are older. Alcona’s median age is 60.0, Ontonagon’s 59.8 and Keweenaw’s 57.1, compared with 40.2 statewide. Older populations have fewer never-married young adults, so the married share rises. Leelanau’s never-married share is 21.2%, versus 34.2% for Michigan.

Growing family counties near the metros

The exception in the top ten is Livingston County (58.8%), between Detroit, Lansing and Ann Arbor. It is the only top-ten county with more than 50,000 residents, and its median household income of $103,039 is the highest of the group. Nearby, Ottawa (56.0%) and Allegan (56.1%) in West Michigan and Lapeer (55.4%) and Midland (55.4%) follow the same pattern of established family communities. Livingston’s county seat, Howell, is covered on its own page. Oakland (50.5%), Kent (50.5%) and Macomb (47.8%) sit closer to the middle; see the Oakland County overview for that county’s communities.

University and urban-core counties

The ten least married counties include five with major universities: Isabella (Central Michigan), Ingham (Michigan State), Houghton (Michigan Tech), Washtenaw (University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan) and Kalamazoo (Western Michigan). All five have median ages of 35.0 or younger, and Isabella’s is 30.1. The rest are counties with large older cities: Wayne (home to Detroit), Genesee (Flint) and Saginaw, along with Chippewa and Luce in the eastern U.P. Wayne County’s 38.5% largely reflects Detroit, where only 22.3% of adults are married.

Michigan’s most and least married counties

The chart shows the 25 most married counties; the table under it lists all 83 with married, divorced and never-married shares.

How this county ranking was built

Each county’s figures come from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 2024 5-year estimates (survey years 2020 to 2024), retrieved through the Census Reporter API. From table B12001, we calculated the married share as residents 15 and older who are now married (excluding those separated), divided by all residents 15 and older. Never-married and divorced shares use the same denominator. Median age is from table B01002 and median household income from table B19013. The tallies (66 counties above 47.6%, one top-ten county above 50,000 residents) are direct counts from the data.

Caveats before you compare counties

• Percent married is not a marriage rate. CDC/NCHS reports Michigan’s yearly marriage rate as a provisional 5.1 weddings per 1,000 residents in 2024. That rate counts marriages where the ceremony takes place, while the ACS share counts where married people live.
• Tiny counties have large margins of error. Keweenaw has 2,133 residents and Ontonagon 5,850, so their estimates are much less precise than Kent’s or Oakland’s.
• Seasonal residents. The ACS counts people where they are staying for more than two months, so part-time residents of northern counties may be counted in either place.
• No measure of relationship quality. A high married share tells you nothing about how those marriages are going.

What this means for couples and families

A county’s married share mostly reflects its age and its mix of students, families and retirees. It is not a score, and living in a highly married county does not mean your relationship should look a certain way. Long marriages in the north face their own transitions, such as retirement, caring for a parent or adjusting to an empty house, while young couples in university counties are often working out commitment, careers and where to settle.

Whatever stage you are in, support is not limited by geography. Online therapy reaches every county, from Keweenaw to Monroe. Iryna Morhunova-Sutton, LLMFT, offers marriage counseling and work with individuals and families by video anywhere in Michigan. To see the same counties through a different lens, read our analysis of divorce by county in Michigan, or compare cities in our ranking of the most married places in Michigan.

Update schedule

County figures are refreshed each December with the newest ACS 5-year release. The CDC marriage rate is updated when NCHS publishes a new state table.