Forest Lake vs Stillwater

A side-by-side comparison of Forest Lake and Stillwater: population, income, housing, and more.

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

Forest Lake has the higher population (20,678 vs 19,323 in Stillwater). Stillwater has the higher median household income ($109,297 vs $89,879 in Forest Lake). Stillwater has the higher median home value ($398,100 vs $375,900 in Forest Lake).

Population, income & housing

	Forest Lake	Stillwater
Population	20,678	19,323
Median age	38.8 yrs	42.5 yrs
Median household income	$89,879	$109,297
Median home value	$375,900	$398,100
Median gross rent	$1,379	$1,408
Housing units	8,589	8,446
Homeownership rate	71.8%	75.5%
Bachelor's degree or higher	35.7%	50.9%
Unemployment rate	4.6%	2.9%

Trends (ACS 5-year, 2019–2023)

	Forest Lake	Stillwater
Population	20,004 → 20,678 (+3.4%)	19,341 → 19,323 (-0.1%)
Median household income	$79,840 → $89,879 (+12.6%)	$91,350 → $109,297 (+19.6%)
Median home value	$272,200 → $375,900 (+38.1%)	$291,400 → $398,100 (+36.6%)
Median gross rent	$1,117 → $1,379 (+23.5%)	$1,014 → $1,408 (+38.9%)

Forest Lake

Population

20,00420,678

Median household income

$79,840$89,879

Median home value

$272,200$375,900

Median gross rent

$1,117$1,379

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)

	Forest Lake	Stillwater
Under 5	4.9%	4.1%
5 to 17	18.0%	17.8%
18 to 24	8.4%	7.5%
25 to 34	14.2%	11.9%
35 to 44	12.3%	11.9%
45 to 54	13.0%	11.5%
55 to 64	12.3%	15.2%
65 to 74	9.4%	11.5%
75 and over	7.4%	8.6%

Race & ethnicity (share)

	Forest Lake	Stillwater
White (non-Hispanic)	81.5%	84.0%
Black or African American	3.6%	1.5%
American Indian & Alaska Native	0.2%	0.2%
Asian	5.9%	3.1%
Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander	0.0%	0.0%
Some other race	1.0%	0.5%
Two or more races	3.3%	3.4%
Hispanic or Latino	4.5%	7.2%

Educational attainment (age 25+)

Share of adults 25+

	Forest Lake	Stillwater
No high school diploma	6.7%	3.5%
High school graduate	24.6%	17.4%
Some college or associate's	32.9%	28.3%
Bachelor's degree	25.0%	30.2%
Graduate or professional degree	10.8%	20.6%

Commute to work

How workers get to work (share)

	Forest Lake	Stillwater
Drove alone	73.0%	69.9%
Carpooled	7.6%	6.9%
Public transit	0.0%	0.7%
Walked	2.6%	1.7%
Bicycle	0.3%	0.1%
Worked from home	16.1%	19.7%
Other means	0.4%	0.9%

Housing

Units in structure (share)

	Forest Lake	Stillwater
1-unit, detached	60.7%	64.0%
1-unit, attached	12.8%	15.8%
2 to 4 units	2.6%	6.3%
5 to 19 units	4.7%	2.6%
20 or more units	17.4%	11.0%
Mobile home & other	1.9%	0.3%

Poverty & households

	Forest Lake	Stillwater
Poverty rate	6.7%	7.7%
Average household size	2.52	2.39
Mean commute (minutes)	25	21
Median year structure built	1990	1982