Hennepin County ( HEN-ə-pin) is a county in the U.S. state of Minnesota. Its county seat is Minneapolis, the state’s most populous city. The county is named in honor of the 17th-century explorer Father Louis Hennepin. The county extends from Minneapolis to the suburbs and outlying cities in the western part of the county. The county’s natural areas are covered with extensive woods, hills, and lakes.As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,281,565. It is the most populous county in Minnesota, and the 34th-most populous county in the United States; more than one in five Minnesotans live in Hennepin County. Hennepin County is included in the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington Metropolitan Statistical Area.