Lake Forest, Illinois

Lake Forest population, 2020 to 2024

Lake Forest added 293 residents from July 2020 to July 2024, a change of +1.5%. In the latest year it moved by +143. Among 330 Illinois places of 5,000 or more, that growth ranks 51st; the median place changed by -0.9%. The median place of 5,000+ in Illinois has 14,760 people, so Lake Forest is 1.3 times that size.

Lake Forest covers 17.20 square miles of land and 0.07 of water, for 1,142 people per square mile of land. The median Illinois place of 5,000+ has 2,177, so Lake Forest is less dense than the typical town.

What county Lake Forest is in

All of Lake Forest's residents live in Lake County, which had 718,604 residents in 2024. Lake Forest holds 2.7% of the county's population. The shaded shape is on the map above; dots mark the eight nearest places.

ZIP codes in Lake Forest

1 ZIP Code Tabulation Area (ZCTA) overlaps Lake Forest by at least 10% of the ZCTA's or the city's land: 60045. ZCTAs are Census approximations of USPS ZIP code delivery areas. The list comes from the 2020 ZCTA to place relationship file, so a city that annexed land after 2020 may reach into ZIP codes not listed here.

Where Lake Forest is

The Census internal point of Lake Forest is at 42.235300, -87.857300. Springfield, the capital, is 193.6 miles SSW in a straight line. The nearest larger place is Highland Park, IL (30,794 people), 4.3 miles away. The nearest city of 100,000 or more is Elgin, IL, 27.6 miles away.

Daylight in Lake Forest

At 42.24° N, Lake Forest gets about 15 h 16 min of daylight around the June solstice and 9 h 05 min around the December solstice, a swing of 6 h 11 min. Figures are sunrise to sunset from the SunCalc model for June 21 and December 21, 2026.

Places near Lake Forest

The eight nearest incorporated places of 1,000+ in Illinois, measured between internal points. The closest is Highwood, 3.0 miles away, with 5,358 people.