Alexander County area

Population and density of Alexander County

The Census Bureau estimates that 36,958 people lived in Alexander County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,296 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #67 of 100 in North Carolina. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 36,440, the population has grown by 518 (+1.4%), compared with +7.2% for North Carolina as a whole.

With 260 square miles of land, that is 142 people per square mile (55 per km²), placing Alexander County #801 nationally for density and #43 in North Carolina. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the North Carolina median is 116. Put another way, there are about 4.5 acres of land per resident.

U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 population estimates. Estimates are revised each year and are not decennial census counts. Density divides the whole population by the whole county’s land area, so it describes an average, not how settlement is distributed within the county. Population sources and methods.

Cities and towns in Alexander County

1 incorporated place lies at least partly in Alexander County. Together they are home to 2,333 people (6.3%); the other 34,625 (93.7%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Taylorsville town, with 2,333 residents in the county.

Metropolitan area

Alexander County is an outlying county of the Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 4 county equivalents have 376,890 residents on 1,639.5 square miles of land; Alexander County accounts for 15.9% of the land and 9.8% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #197 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #152 by population. It belongs to the Charlotte-Concord, NC-SC Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

8 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Alexander County; 2 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

2860128625286302863628654286782868128689

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are the Census Bureau’s approximations of USPS ZIP Code service areas, from the 2020 Census relationship files. Lighter codes have less than half of their land in this county. Post-office-box and single-address ZIP Codes have no tabulation area.

Counties bordering Alexander County

Alexander County shares a land border with 4 county equivalents. Each of them has more land than Alexander County. The largest neighbor is Wilkes County (753.7 mi²) and the smallest is Catawba County (401.4 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Alexander County forms a block of 2,461.4 mi² of land, of which it holds 10.6%.

How big is Alexander County compared with U.S. states?

Alexander County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 4 times as much. North Carolina’s county land could hold about 187 areas the size of Alexander County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 16.1 miles (25.9 km) on each side. Real county shapes are rarely square, so this is a scale reference rather than a width or driving distance.

State figures are the sums of each state’s county-equivalent land measurements in the same Census release, so states and counties are compared on the same basis. Published state totals can differ slightly because of rounding. Compare all states · Counties bigger than entire states.

What stands out about Alexander County?

Alexander County has more land than 334 of the other 3,221 county equivalents in the dataset.

A median is the middle county-equivalent measurement, not the average of the largest and smallest. All three bars use the same linear scale. Very small areas may appear as a thin sliver; the labels retain their values.

Does including water change its rank?

Using land plus water places Alexander County at #2,921 nationally by total area, 33 places farther from the top than its land rank. Other county equivalents gain more area when their water measurements are included.

Its water share is 1.4%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.2 percentage points higher. This describes the statistical geography’s land/water mix, not flood exposure or developable land.

Closest positions in the national land ranking

These entries sit immediately beside Alexander County in the national ranking. They can be in different states and are not necessarily geographic neighbors.

Calculated from the same Census release as the area table. Total-area order uses original ALAND + AWATER; water shares and chart labels use published square miles. Calculation details.