Cottage Grove vs Stillwater

A side-by-side comparison of Cottage Grove and Stillwater: population, income, housing, and more.

Cottage Grove and Stillwater are places in Minnesota. This page compares them across population, income, housing, education, commuting, and how each has changed since 2019.

Cottage Grove has the higher population (40,124 vs 19,323 in Stillwater). Cottage Grove has the higher median household income ($121,452 vs $109,297 in Stillwater). Stillwater has the higher median home value ($398,100 vs $359,600 in Cottage Grove).

Population, income & housing

	Cottage Grove	Stillwater
Population	40,124	19,323
Median age	36.8 yrs	42.5 yrs
Median household income	$121,452	$109,297
Median home value	$359,600	$398,100
Median gross rent	$1,644	$1,408
Housing units	14,038	8,446
Homeownership rate	88.4%	75.5%
Bachelor's degree or higher	39.3%	50.9%
Unemployment rate	3.5%	2.9%

Trends (ACS 5-year, 2019–2023)

	Cottage Grove	Stillwater
Population	36,602 → 40,124 (+9.6%)	19,341 → 19,323 (-0.1%)
Median household income	$102,039 → $121,452 (+19.0%)	$91,350 → $109,297 (+19.6%)
Median home value	$249,800 → $359,600 (+44.0%)	$291,400 → $398,100 (+36.6%)
Median gross rent	$1,342 → $1,644 (+22.5%)	$1,014 → $1,408 (+38.9%)

Cottage Grove

Population

36,60240,124

Median household income

$102,039$121,452

Median home value

$249,800$359,600

Median gross rent

$1,342$1,644

Stillwater

Population

19,34119,323

Median household income

$91,350$109,297

Median home value

$291,400$398,100

Median gross rent

$1,014$1,408

Age & race/ethnicity

Age distribution (share)

	Cottage Grove	Stillwater
Under 5	7.4%	4.1%
5 to 17	19.2%	17.8%
18 to 24	7.4%	7.5%
25 to 34	12.3%	11.9%
35 to 44	17.0%	11.9%
45 to 54	11.5%	11.5%
55 to 64	11.5%	15.2%
65 to 74	8.5%	11.5%
75 and over	5.2%	8.6%

Race & ethnicity (share)

	Cottage Grove	Stillwater
White (non-Hispanic)	76.1%	84.0%
Black or African American	5.3%	1.5%
American Indian & Alaska Native	0.1%	0.2%
Asian	6.5%	3.1%
Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander	0.1%	0.0%
Some other race	0.4%	0.5%
Two or more races	4.8%	3.4%
Hispanic or Latino	6.8%	7.2%

Educational attainment (age 25+)

Share of adults 25+

	Cottage Grove	Stillwater
No high school diploma	4.6%	3.5%
High school graduate	23.6%	17.4%
Some college or associate's	32.5%	28.3%
Bachelor's degree	27.6%	30.2%
Graduate or professional degree	11.6%	20.6%

Commute to work

How workers get to work (share)

	Cottage Grove	Stillwater
Drove alone	71.2%	69.9%
Carpooled	7.4%	6.9%
Public transit	0.8%	0.7%
Walked	0.5%	1.7%
Bicycle	0.1%	0.1%
Worked from home	19.3%	19.7%
Other means	0.7%	0.9%

Housing

Units in structure (share)

	Cottage Grove	Stillwater
1-unit, detached	80.5%	64.0%
1-unit, attached	11.7%	15.8%
2 to 4 units	1.6%	6.3%
5 to 19 units	2.2%	2.6%
20 or more units	3.7%	11.0%
Mobile home & other	0.4%	0.3%

Poverty & households

	Cottage Grove	Stillwater
Poverty rate	4.2%	7.7%
Average household size	2.88	2.39
Mean commute (minutes)	25	21
Median year structure built	1988	1982