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North Carolina: county data, all 100 of them.

Every North Carolina county has a data page built from federal sources, each figure carrying its publisher and period. What this page does not carry is the North Carolina statutory framework, and the reason is below rather than hidden.

Counties
100
Population
10,730,404
Land area
48,622 sq mi
Establishments
257,080
Combined county GDP
$844.21 bn
SBA approvals recorded
10,490

Read this first

This is a county directory, not a state guide.

The county pages below are complete. They carry demographics, growth and migration, economic output, employment and wages, business establishments by industry, the construction pipeline, the SBA lending record including charge off rates, geography and hazard. Every figure names its publisher and the period it describes.

What is missing is the North Carolina legal and regulatory frame: how zoning and land development codes work in this state, what the entitlement path looks like, which agencies permit what, and which statutes override local codes. That material requires a research pack for North Carolina, and no such pack exists yet.

Why there is no state guide here

You cannot write North Carolina zoning law from a population table. Everything on the county pages is derived from federal datasets that cover all counties equally; statutory analysis is not, and generating it anyway would produce confident text about the law that nothing behind it supports.

Florida and California have research packs and therefore have full state guides. The remaining eight, including this one, do not. That is stated rather than papered over.

Counties

All 100 North Carolina county-equivalents.

North Carolina counties: population, income, establishments and SBA activity
GeographyPopulationMedian incomeEstablishmentsCounty GDPSBA approvalsLand area, sq mi
Alamance County176,893$65,6513,652$9.01 bn113424
Alexander County36,412$65,354598$1.20 bn20260
Alleghany County11,174$47,172257$420.0 m7235
Anson County22,289$47,302380$1.17 bn9531
Ashe County26,950$56,866571$1.07 bn14426
Avery County17,680$61,428539$890.3 m6247
Beaufort County44,499$58,3571,138$2.37 bn34827
Bertie County17,170$48,750277$797.9 m7699
Bladen County29,566$42,422540$1.86 bn6874
Brunswick County152,568$77,0243,093$8.08 bn132847
Buncombe County274,360$74,4369,863$21.26 bn414657
Burke County87,795$58,5921,540$3.72 bn52507
Cabarrus County236,133$89,0055,279$12.96 bn257362
Caldwell County80,536$56,4251,414$3.31 bn33472
Camden County10,927$91,078124$226.1 m5241
Carteret County69,148$72,3222,249$3.74 bn73506
Caswell County22,404$59,755242$531.3 m10425
Catawba County163,573$67,8644,349$12.40 bn148399
Chatham County80,151$94,3171,719$2.92 bn87682
Cherokee County29,562$53,628649$1.18 bn14455
Chowan County13,836$53,864372$723.0 m8172
Clay County11,610$56,971252$328.2 m6215
Cleveland County100,991$58,5342,028$6.03 bn52464
Columbus County50,140$49,442997$1.92 bn17937
Craven County102,612$65,8732,224$6.91 bn67709
Cumberland County338,545$61,2915,947$24.44 bn203652
Currituck County30,601$93,511766$1.15 bn30262
Dare County37,875$88,9942,079$3.09 bn88383
Davidson County172,954$64,1722,994$7.13 bn91553
Davie County44,122$75,057877$1.97 bn23264
Duplin County49,335$55,148870$2.91 bn22816
Durham County332,353$82,3168,282$53.29 bn370286
Edgecombe County48,736$51,265702$1.99 bn7505
Forsyth County389,977$67,1659,141$34.37 bn300408
Franklin County74,386$74,2401,228$2.88 bn55492
Gaston County234,881$67,4784,594$11.26 bn210356
Gates County10,376$66,333115$240.0 m4340
Graham County8,072$49,684164$329.9 m6292
Granville County60,877$71,111962$4.94 bn32532
Greene County20,486$53,244271$626.3 m12266
Guilford County547,940$68,64214,306$46.94 bn517646
Halifax County47,675$45,590934$1.94 bn23724
Harnett County139,150$71,2871,960$3.97 bn77595
Haywood County62,662$61,9121,546$2.60 bn66554
Henderson County118,484$68,1873,085$6.37 bn134373
Hertford County19,908$45,537459$1.08 bn3353
Hoke County53,835$64,912491$1.64 bn19391
Hyde County4,592$53,713150$230.7 m8613
Iredell County196,544$81,4195,405$13.55 bn254574
Jackson County43,771$55,8151,113$2.19 bn29491
Johnston County234,263$83,3844,151$11.57 bn161791
Jones County9,302$59,641125$306.6 m3471
Lee County65,816$65,3871,460$4.26 bn60255
Lenoir County54,919$45,1431,220$3.63 bn16401
Lincoln County92,716$80,0162,081$4.74 bn91298
Macon County37,941$59,0611,282$2.13 bn37516
Madison County21,867$58,531402$632.1 m24450
Martin County21,644$48,578426$808.0 m4461
McDowell County44,817$57,168822$2.77 bn17441
Mecklenburg County1,154,681$87,00536,472$186.11 bn1,836524
Mitchell County14,992$57,602371$681.3 m5221
Montgomery County26,007$57,766503$1.47 bn10492
Moore County104,876$86,0802,516$5.74 bn91698
Nash County96,216$62,4262,114$7.18 bn75540
New Hanover County235,229$75,1668,710$21.04 bn432192
Northampton County16,931$50,086255$738.9 m1537
Onslow County207,906$68,1483,080$12.50 bn149763
Orange County149,678$90,0893,491$13.07 bn128398
Pamlico County12,390$59,717261$378.0 m4337
Pasquotank County40,834$66,589931$2.21 bn45227
Pender County65,550$80,3961,499$2.52 bn60870
Perquimans County13,244$67,917184$391.6 m2247
Person County39,542$63,300725$2.10 bn25392
Pitt County177,193$58,1883,817$12.53 bn140652
Polk County19,891$67,758504$734.5 m20238
Randolph County146,348$61,0222,651$5.99 bn77783
Richmond County42,344$44,883814$2.62 bn31474
Robeson County116,902$41,9781,787$5.04 bn44949
Rockingham County92,131$57,0531,632$3.85 bn45566
Rowan County149,875$65,7252,908$7.89 bn88511
Rutherford County64,930$51,4101,289$2.49 bn44564
Sampson County59,470$52,4321,014$2.55 bn23945
Scotland County33,590$45,730624$1.56 bn17319
Stanly County64,651$60,7041,459$2.78 bn56395
Stokes County45,139$62,969674$1.76 bn22449
Surry County71,425$55,6561,661$3.54 bn95532
Swain County14,013$52,349382$916.3 m16528
Transylvania County33,691$66,1841,011$2.39 bn28379
Tyrrell County3,423$41,68571$125.7 m1389
Union County250,958$102,9005,732$13.11 bn338632
Vance County42,322$50,465880$1.69 bn26254
Wake County1,178,653$105,76833,873$128.43 bn1,660835
Warren County18,795$50,638291$407.3 m6428
Washington County10,812$41,813221$355.7 m6348
Watauga County55,123$51,6931,740$3.19 bn53313
Wayne County118,652$59,7332,195$6.77 bn57553
Wilkes County65,935$51,7211,157$3.23 bn67754
Wilson County79,290$56,4231,818$5.17 bn49368
Yadkin County37,574$62,932650$1.33 bn18335
Yancey County18,797$58,709357$605.1 m13313

The register

Every source behind these 100 pages.

SourcePeriod coveredLicence
US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates2020-2024 5-yearUS Census Bureau, public domain
US Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program, Vintage 2024Vintage 2024, estimates 2020 to 2024US Census Bureau, public domain
US Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional, table CAGDP2CAGDP2, through 2024US Bureau of Economic Analysis, public domain
US EPA, Map of Radon Zones, county spreadsheet2024-05 publication, EPA 402/A-16/001US EPA, public domain
FEMA OpenFEMA, NFIP Community Status BookCommunity Status Book, as retrievedFEMA OpenFEMA, public domain
US Small Business Administration, 7(a) FOIA releaseFY2020 to FY2026 year to date, as of 2026-06-30FOIA release, public domain
US Small Business Administration, 504 FOIA releaseFY2010 to FY2026 year to date, as of 2026-06-30FOIA release, public domain
US Census Bureau county boundary geometry, TIGER, adjacency computed from shared boundary verticesTIGER county boundariesUS Census Bureau, public domain
US Census Bureau, County Business Patterns2023US Census Bureau, public domain
US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages2024 annual averagesUS BLS, public domain
US Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey2024 annualUS Census Bureau, public domain
US Internal Revenue Service, Statistics of Income county migration flows2021 to 2022 filing yearsIRS SOI, public domain

How a county page is built →