Some of the cities, towns, and places in Anoka County are Andover, Anoka, Bethel, Blaine, Centerville, Circle Pines, Columbia Heights, Columbus, Coon Rapids, East Bethel, Fridley, Ham Lake, Hilltop, Isanti County, Lexington, Lino Lakes, Linwood, Linwood Township, Martin Lake, Nowthen, Oak Grove, Ramsey, Ramsey County, Saint Francis, Spring Lake Park
Anoka County ( ə-NOH-kə) is the fourth-most-populous county in the U.S. state of Minnesota. As of the 2020 census, the population was 363,887. The county seat and namesake of the county is the city of Anoka, which is derived from the Dakota word anokatanhan meaning "on (or from) both sides," referring to its location on the banks of the Rum River. The largest city in the county is the city of Blaine, the thirteenth-largest city in Minnesota and the eighth-largest Twin Cities suburb.
Anoka County comprises the north portion of the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI Metropolitan Statistical Area, the largest metropolitan area in the state and the sixteenth-largest in the United States with about 3.64 million residents.
The county is bordered by the counties of Isanti on the north, Chisago and Washington on the east, Hennepin and Ramsey on the south, Sherburne on the west, and the Mississippi River on the southwest. The Rum River cuts through the county and was the site of many early European settlements. It was a common route to the Mille Lacs Lake, the spiritual homeland of the Ojibwe people. Father Louis Hennepin traveled the river in his first exploration of the region. The area became a center of fur trade and logging as French and French Canadian communities grew in the cities of Anoka and Centerville. Organized in 1857, the county's southern border eventually met Minneapolis and has become a predominantly suburban area following the construction of Interstate 35W. The county is home to local Twin Cities destinations such as the Heights Theater in Columbia Heights and Northtown Mall and the National Sports Center in Blaine.