Clay County area

Population and density of Clay County

The Census Bureau estimates that 12,239 people lived in Clay County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,340 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #92 of 100 in North Carolina. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 11,083, the population has grown by 1,156 (+10.4%), compared with +7.2% for North Carolina as a whole.

With 215 square miles of land, that is 57 people per square mile (22 per km²), placing Clay County #1,436 nationally for density and #77 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 11 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 Clay County

1 incorporated place lies at least partly in Clay County. Together they are home to 470 people (3.8%); the other 11,769 (96.2%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Hayesville town, with 470 residents in the county.

Metropolitan area

Clay County is not part of any metropolitan or micropolitan statistical area in the Office of Management and Budget’s July 2023 delineation; 1,306 other county equivalents are also outside one. These areas are built around an urban core of at least 10,000 people plus the counties tied to it by commuting, so counties outside them are generally rural.

ZIP codes

5 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Clay County; 3 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

2873428902289042890628909

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 Clay County

Clay County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents, including 3 in Georgia. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Macon County (515.5 mi²) and the smallest is Towns County (166.6 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Clay County forms a block of 2,046.4 mi² of land, of which it holds 10.5%.

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

Clay County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 4.8 times as much. North Carolina’s county land could hold about 226 areas the size of Clay County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 14.7 miles (23.6 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 Clay County?

Clay County has more land than 247 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 Clay County at #2,994 nationally by total area, 19 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 2.6%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1.5 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 Clay 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.