Detroit Lakes, MN population, income and ZIP codes

Detroit Lakes city is a mid-size town in Minnesota, with 10,002 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #101 of 914 ranked by population — larger than 89% of them. The median age here is 41.5 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly older profile than the country as a whole. Places under 65,000 residents only appear in the five-year release, never the one-year file, so these values pool sixty months of responses and lag the current year by design.

Households in Detroit Lakes city earn a median of $62,123 a year, 20.9% below the national figure of $78,538 and 18% below the $75,469 median for the 361 Minnesota cities we cover. The median is the midpoint household, not an average, so a handful of very high earners cannot drag it upward the way they distort a mean. Poverty reaches 10.2% of residents here, below the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Detroit Lakes city is valued at $246,200, 18.9% below the national figure and within a couple of points of the $240,400 peer median, while median gross rent runs $925 a month, 34.2% below the national figure, or roughly $11,100 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 17.9% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is cheap relative to what people here earn. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 4×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 59.6% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans more heavily on renters. Rent is reported gross — contract rent plus tenant-paid utilities — which is why it runs above the advertised price on a listing for the same unit.

All values below were released by the Census for this exact geography, with no gap-filling on our side. Small-area estimates still carry wider margins of error than state or national figures, so check the linked ACS tables before relying on them for lending, appraisal or legal work.