North Carolina Counties
Complete list of all 100 counties in North Carolina with population, area, median income, and county seats — plus a free printable blank map.
Labeled outline map of North Carolina counties. Download a printable version in SVG, PNG, or PDF.
All 100 North Carolina counties
| County | County Seat | Population ▼ | Area | Median Income | Cities |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mecklenburg | — | 1,173,019 | 524 mi² | $93,513 | 8 |
| Wake | — | 1,166,601 | 835 mi² | $107,580 | 12 |
| Guilford | — | 545,143 | 646 mi² | $72,005 | 13 |
| Forsyth | — | 366,061 | 408 mi² | $71,973 | 10 |
| Cumberland | — | 324,774 | 652 mi² | $62,163 | 9 |
| Durham | — | 321,673 | 286 mi² | $83,058 | 2 |
| Buncombe | — | 269,596 | 657 mi² | $74,957 | 14 |
| Union | — | 250,703 | 632 mi² | $110,763 | 7 |
| Gaston | — | 238,761 | 356 mi² | $69,403 | 13 |
| New Hanover | — | 237,060 | 192 mi² | $79,497 | 5 |
| Cabarrus | — | 236,047 | 362 mi² | $88,432 | 5 |
| Onslow | — | 205,843 | 763 mi² | $68,848 | 12 |
| Iredell | — | 197,744 | 574 mi² | $83,224 | 11 |
| Davidson | — | 193,095 | 553 mi² | $61,232 | 8 |
| Johnston | — | 189,124 | 791 mi² | $82,277 | 10 |
How many counties does North Carolina have?
North Carolina has 100 counties covering 48,618 square miles and roughly 10,730,463 residents. The state was admitted to the Union in 1789 as the 12th state, and the current county boundaries reflect more than a century of administrative subdivision.
The largest county by land area is Robeson County at 949 square miles, home to about 116,722 residents. The most populous is Mecklenburg County with approximately 1,173,019 residents — a density of about 2,239 people per square mile.
At the other end of the scale, Tyrrell County has only about 3,382 residents.
North Carolina’s capital is Raleigh, while the largest city is Charlotte — a common pattern in the United States, where many states placed their capitals in smaller, more central towns rather than their largest commercial hubs.
Related resources
Download a printable outline of North Carolina’s county boundaries from our blank map of North Carolina page — available in SVG, PNG, and PDF.
Use the What County Am I In? tool to detect which North Carolina county a GPS location or address falls in, or the Address to County Lookup for batch input.
For demographic radius analysis, the Find ZIP Codes in Radius and Population Within Radius tools let you draw a circle around any North Carolina address and see every ZIP code and the total population inside.
Two SimpleMapLab studies cover North Carolina specifically: the 100-mile radius around Raleigh measures how much of the state lives within 100 miles of its capitol, and the loneliest town in North Carolina ranks the state’s most isolated inhabited place. The county-counts blog post puts North Carolina’s 100 counties in national context.
Frequently asked questions
Population and demographics are aggregated from ZIP-code-level US Census data via the SimpleMaps dataset. Countiesboundaries are from the US Atlas TopoJSON build of the Census Bureau’s TIGER/Line shapefiles. Land area is from the Census Gazetteer. State counts follow the US Census Bureau’s definition of counties and county-equivalents (50 states + DC = 3,143). All sources are public domain.