Colorado

Buying Land in Denver County, Colorado

Denver County is the City and County of Denver -- one consolidated government, no separate rural county to speak of. If you're picturing raw acreage, this almost certainly isn't the county for it; what does exist is scarce, expensive infill land and one genuine oddity out by the airport. Here's the honest picture.

Raw Land Market: Essentially None

Case-by-case / verify locally

Denver is a consolidated city-county -- one of only two in Colorado, along with Broomfield -- covering about 153 square miles, nearly all of it built out with neighborhoods, commercial corridors, and infrastructure. Land-search platforms typically show only a handful of 'undeveloped' listings in Denver County at any given time, and recent figures put the average price for those at roughly $3.7 million per acre. This is infill, teardown, and redevelopment land, not rural or agricultural acreage -- if you're looking for raw land at rural prices, look at a neighboring county instead.

Zoning: Denver Zoning Code, Not a County Planning Department

Could not confirm

Because Denver is a consolidated city-county, there's no separate county zoning authority -- all land use runs through the City and County of Denver's Community Planning and Development (CPD) department under the Denver Zoning Code (with some older parcels still governed by the legacy 'Chapter 59' code it replaced). Any parcel search here is really a city zoning-map search, and CPD is the correct first call rather than a typical rural county planning office.

The DIA Exception: Leased Farmland, Not a Land Market

Could not confirm

Denver's city-county boundary includes roughly 53 square miles annexed from Adams County in 1988 to build Denver International Airport, and a real portion of that land -- over 16,000 acres -- has been leased back to local farming families rather than developed, going back to the airport's construction in the early 1990s. It's the closest thing to open land inside Denver County, but it's airport-owned land under long-term agricultural leases, not property on the private market, so don't mistake this for a rural land-buying opportunity.

A consolidated city-county with no rural land to speak of

Colorado has only two consolidated city-county governments -- Denver and Broomfield -- and Denver is the original and largest. There is no separate 'Denver County government' distinct from the City and County of Denver; one government runs both, and essentially the entire 153-square-mile area is incorporated city, built out with residential, commercial, and industrial land uses. That matters for a land search: unlike most Colorado counties, there's no meaningful unincorporated area with agricultural or rural-residential zoning to search for. What gets listed as 'land for sale' in Denver County is overwhelmingly infill lots, teardown properties, and small redevelopment parcels inside an already-dense urban fabric.

The numbers back this up: land-search platforms tracking the Denver market show only a small handful of parcels labeled 'undeveloped' within Denver County proper at any time, with average asking prices running into the millions of dollars per acre -- a completely different market than the raw-acreage search this site otherwise covers. If your goal is rural land, water rights, or agricultural acreage, Denver County is very likely the wrong search target; Adams, Arapahoe, Douglas, Jefferson, or a genuinely rural Front Range or Western Slope county will serve that purpose far better.

Zoning runs through Denver Community Planning and Development, not a county office

Because Denver is a consolidated city-county, all land use and zoning authority runs through the city's own Community Planning and Development (CPD) department under the Denver Zoning Code -- there is no separate rural county planning department to call. Some older parcels citywide are still governed by the prior zoning code (informally called 'Chapter 59'), which predates the current Denver Zoning Code, so a specific parcel's applicable code and zone district should be confirmed directly with CPD rather than assumed from a general zoning map.

If you're evaluating any parcel in Denver County -- infill, redevelopment, or otherwise -- treat it as a city zoning and permitting question from the start, not a county land-use question in the sense used elsewhere on this site.

The one real exception: leased farmland around Denver International Airport

There is one genuine, verifiable exception to Denver County's fully urban character. In 1988, Colorado voters and the Adams County electorate approved transferring roughly 53 square miles of what was then Adams County farmland to the City and County of Denver specifically to build Denver International Airport, which opened in 1995. DIA's footprint made it, by land area, one of the largest airports in the world -- but the airport itself uses only a portion of that land for runways, terminals, and related infrastructure.

Rather than let the remaining acreage sit idle, the city has leased it back to local farming families since the airport's early-1990s construction -- more than 16,000 acres are farmed under these leases today, continuing a wheat-farming tradition that predates the airport, with a handful of remaining multi-generation farming families still working the land. This is a real and interesting fact about Denver County's land use, but it's not a path to buying land here: the acreage is owned by the airport and leased long-term, not available on the open market, and it's zoned and managed as airport property, not agricultural real estate for private purchase.

What we could and couldn't confirm

Denver County's 'essentially no raw-land market' framing is based on land-search-platform listing counts and average per-acre pricing at the time of research, which shift with the market and shouldn't be read as a fixed number -- the underlying point (a fully built consolidated city-county with no meaningful unincorporated agricultural land) is stable and independently verifiable, but the exact listing count and price will drift. The DIA-area leased-farmland acreage (16,000+ acres) and the 1988 annexation size (roughly 53 square miles) are drawn from news and airport-history reporting rather than a single official county figure; the airport's own real estate office is the best source for current, precise acreage.

Verify directly with: the City and County of Denver's Community Planning and Development department for zoning, and Denver International Airport's Real Estate office for anything specific to the DIA-annexed land

Who to Call Before Buying Land in Denver County

Because Denver is fully sewered, septic (OWTS) permitting and rural well permitting are not practically relevant here and no department is listed for them. We could not independently verify a direct phone line for the Assessor Maps/GIS office specifically (Denver routes GIS/property mapping through its general property-map portal), so no phone is listed for that entry -- use the website or the Assessor's main line instead.

Planning & Zoning

City and County of Denver -- Community Planning and Development (CPD)

Confirming a parcel's zoning district under the Denver Zoning Code (or the legacy former Chapter 59 code where it still applies), permitted uses, and rezoning or variance questions.

Phone: (720) 865-2705Official website →

GIS / Parcel Records